Forecast Rodeo: World Climate Service Performs Well
In April 2017, the US Bureau of Reclamation launched the Forecast Rodeo, a year-long real-time subseasonal climate forecasting competition. Contestants were asked to predict temperature and precipitation over the western half of the USA for lead times of 3-4 weeks and 5-6 weeks separately. The forecasts were issued every other week over the course of one year.
Prescient Weather participated in the Forecast Rodeo by submitting a simplified version of the World Climate Service subseasonal multi-model ensemble forecast. Final verification results were released this week, showing that the WCS subseasonal climate forecasts (team name “prxwx”) performed better than any other competitor over all four categories combined.
Forecast Rodeo: Results by Category
The breakdown of results by category is shown below. Unlike any other team, the WCS forecasts were competitive in every category.
It is important to note that the forecasts submitted to the contest were a simplified and less-skillful version of the forecasts that are available to customers via the World Climate Service Subseasonal Forecast product. World Climate Service customers have access to a superior and proprietary multi-model blend as well as other tools that enable confident decision-making in the subseasonal timeframe.
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