Quick! You've only got a few hours left to prove you're Australia's best weather tipster.

The 2022 AMOS National Centre Weather Tipping Competition starts tonight and it's just like footy tipping, only more fun, especially if you're a certified weather nerd as we know so many of you are. Click here to enter.

The comp has been running for more than 10 years and is run by AMOS – the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society – which is basically an industry group for those who work in weather forecasting, research and associated fields.

How does it work?

Over 23 weekends from this weekend till the weekend of August 27/28, you have to forecast the max temp, min temp and mm of rain at selected Australian locations.

There's a different location each weekend – from this weekend's hot spot of Marble Bar in WA, to the snowfields of Perisher Valley in July.

You can forecast down to the decimal point for both temperatures and rainfall/snowfall.

The top four players after 23 weeks go into a series of playoffs lasting four weeks, with the winner declared after the weekend of September 24/25.

The full rules are here. Pay close attention to the cut-off times for minimum temps. We won't bore you with the details, but it's slightly different to the way the BoM does it.

Don't forget, the @AMOSupdates weather tipping comp starts this weekend!!

We're heading to Marble Bar in WA, considered by some to be the hottest place in Australia. But will it really hit 41C tomorrow, as forecast by @BOM_au? Place your tips by 8pm AEDT tonight... pic.twitter.com/57lzUwFsVf

— Linden Ashcroft (@lindenashcroft) March 18, 2022

Any particular strategy that works?

Weatherzone put the above question to competition administrator Grant Beard, who spent 40 years working as a meteorologist, forecaster and climatologist with institutions like the BoM and National Climate Centre.

Grant is not allowed to enter this year, but he's a former winner of the comp and he offered a few hot tips.

• "The BoM forecast should always be your starting point. If you just put the BoM forecasts in, they would finish around eighth most years."
• "If the rain probability is less than 50%, then I generally just leave it as dry."
• "When I was doing the competition as a competitor, I would look at how the BoM was going in the week leading up to the forecast weekend at the particular location to see if there was any bias in the forecasts. If, say, they were tending to overestimate the min temps, then I would adjust my forecast according to how the Bureau was doing leading in."

So as you can see, it really is just like the footy tipping. Do the form. Pay attention to the stats. And use just an ounce of gut and/or local knowledge.

The competition is free to join, but there are monthly prizes of $15 for the month's best tipper. There is also a grand cash prize of $250 for the winner.

We should state that Weatherzone has no official relationship one way or the other with this competition. We just think it sounds like fun and thought you might like to know.

Best of luck!