Spatial and Temporal Variation of Subseasonal-to-Seasonal (S2S)
Precipitation Reforecast Skill Across CONUS
Abstract
Precipitation forecasts, particularly at subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S)
time scale, are essential for informed and proactive water resources
management. Although S2S precipitation forecasts have been evaluated, no
systematic decomposition of the skill, Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE)
coefficient, has been analyzed towards understanding the forecast
accuracy. We decompose the NSE of S2S precipitation forecast into its
three components – correlation, conditional bias, and unconditional
bias – by four seasons, three lead times (1–12-day, 1-22 day, and 1-32
day), and three models (ECMWF, CFS, NCEP) over the Conterminous United
States (CONUS). Application of dry mask is critical as the NSE and
correlation are lower across all seasons after masking areas with low
precipitation values. Further, a west-to-east gradient in S2S forecast
skill exists and forecast skill was better during the winter months and
for areas closer to the coast. Overall, ECMWF’s model performance was
stronger than both ECCC and NCEP CFS’s performance, mainly for the
forecasts issued during fall and winter months. However, ECCC and NCEP
CFS performed better for the forecast issued during the spring months,
and also performed better in in-land areas. Post-processing using simple
Model Output Statistics could reduce both unconditional and conditional
bias to zero, thereby offering better skill for regimes with high
correlation. Our decomposition results also show efforts should focus on
improving model parametrization and initialization schemes for climate
regimes with low correlation values.