Seasonal forecasting of precipitation, temperature, and snow mass over the western U.S. by combining ensemble post-processing with empirical ocean-atmosphere teleconnections

Abstract

Accurate and reliable seasonal forecasts are important for water and energy supply management. Recognizing the important role of snow water equivalent (SWE) for water management, here we include the seasonal forecast of SWE in addition to precipitation (P) and 2-m temperature (T2m) over hydrologically defined regions of the western U.S. A two-stage process is applied to seasonal predictions from two models (NCEP CFSv2 and ECMWF SEAS5) through 1) post-processing to remove biases in the mean, variance, and ensemble spread, and 2) further reducing the residual errors by linear regression using climate indices. The adjusted forecasts from the two models are combined to form a super-ensemble using weights based on their prior skill. The adjusted forecasts are consistently improved over raw model forecasts probabilistically for all variables and deterministically for SWE forecasts. Overall skill of the super-ensemble usually improves upon the skill of forecasts from individual models, however the percentage of seasons and regions with increased skill was approximately the same as those with decreased skill relative to the top performing post-processed individual model. Seasonal SWE has the highest prediction skill, followed by T2m, with P showing lower prediction skill. Persistence contributes strongly to the skill of SWE and moderately to the skill of T2m. Furthermore, a distinct seasonality in the skill is seen in SWE, with a higher skill from late spring through early summer.