diff --git a/.coveragerc b/.coveragerc
deleted file mode 100644
index 2acbc5ae..00000000
--- a/.coveragerc
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,8 +0,0 @@
-[run]
-source = metcalcpy
-relative_files = True
-omit = 
-    config.py
-    config-3.py
-    metcalcpy/contributed/*
-
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 36d28fca..cea21286 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -15,10 +15,10 @@ For information about the support provided for releases, see our [Release Suppor
 Instructions for installing the metcalcpy package locally
 ---------------------------------------------------------
 - activate your conda environment (i.e. 'conda activate your-conda-env-name')
-- from within your active conda environment, cd to the METcalcpy/ directory, where you will see the setup.py script
+- from within your active conda environment, cd to the METcalcpy/ directory, where you will see the file pyproject.toml
 - from this directory, run the following on the command line: pip install -e .
 - the -e option stands for editable, which is useful in that you can update your METcalcpy/metcalcpy source without reinstalling it 
-- the . indicates that you should search the current directory for the setup.py script
+- the . indicates that you should search the current directory for the pyproject.toml file.
 
 - use metcalcpy package via import statement:
   - Examples:
diff --git a/docs/Users_Guide/installation.rst b/docs/Users_Guide/installation.rst
index 17bf80e3..6b96a17f 100644
--- a/docs/Users_Guide/installation.rst
+++ b/docs/Users_Guide/installation.rst
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ METcalcpy source code, e.g. `/User/someuser/METcalcpy`.  From this directory, ru
 
 `pip install -e .`
 
-This instructs pip to install the package based on instructios in the setup.py file located in the current directory
+This instructs pip to install the package based on instructios in the pyproject.toml file located in the current directory
 (as indicated by the '.').  The `-e` directs pip to install the package in edit mode, so if one wishes to make changes
 to this source code, the changes are automatically applied without the need to re-install the package.
 
diff --git a/docs/version b/docs/version
index 5c8498d0..f0c3e423 100644
--- a/docs/version
+++ b/docs/version
@@ -1 +1 @@
-__version__="3.0.0-dev"
+3.0.0-rc1-dev
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..82cf4242
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+[build-system]
+requires = [
+    "setuptools",
+    "wheel",
+    "setuptools-git-versioning>=2.0,<3",
+]
+build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
+
+[project]
+name = "metcalcpy"
+dynamic = ["version", "dependencies"]
+description = "statistics and util package for METplus"
+authors = [
+    {name = "METplus"},
+]
+requires-python = ">=3.10.4"
+readme = "README.md"
+license = {text = "MIT"}
+classifiers = [
+    "License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License",
+    "Operating System :: OS Independent",
+    "Programming Language :: Python :: 3",
+]
+
+[project.urls]
+Homepage = "https://github.com/dtcenter/METcalcpy"
+
+[tool.setuptools.packages]
+find = {include = ["metcalcpy*"]}
+
+[tool.setuptools.package-data]
+metplus = [
+  "docs/version"
+]
+
+[tool.setuptools.exclude-package-data]
+metplus = ["README", "__pycache__", "*~"]
+
+[tool.setuptools.dynamic]
+dependencies = {file = ["requirements.txt"]}
+
+[tool.setuptools-git-versioning]
+enabled = true
+version_file = "docs/version"
+
+[tool.pytest.ini_options]
+testpaths = ["test"]
+
+[tool.coverage.run]
+source = ["metcalcpy"]
+omit = [
+    "config.py",
+    "config-3.py",
+    "metcalcpy/contributed/*",
+    ]
+relative_files = true
+
+[tool.coverage.report]
+exclude_also = [
+    "def __repr__",
+    "if __name__ == .__main__.:",
+    ]
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 2c06f5f8..00000000
--- a/setup.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,29 +0,0 @@
-import setuptools
-from setuptools import setup, find_packages
-from distutils.util import convert_path
-
-with open("README.md", "r") as fh:
-    long_description = fh.read()
-
-main_ns = {}
-version_path = convert_path('docs/version')
-with open(version_path) as version_file:
-    exec(version_file.read(), main_ns)
-
-setuptools.setup(
-    name="metcalcpy",
-    version=main_ns['__version__'],
-    author="METplus",
-    author_email="met-help@ucar.edu",
-    description="statistics and util package for METplus",
-    long_description=long_description,
-    long_description_content_type="text/markdown",
-    url="https://github.com/dtcenter/METcalcpy",
-    packages=setuptools.find_packages(),
-    classifiers=[
-         "Programming Language :: Python :: 3",
-         "License :: OSI Approved :: Apache Software License",
-         "Operating System :: OS Independent",
-    ],
-    python_requires='>=3.6',
-)