JULY 2002 AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY | I n April 2000, a new dynamical seasonal prediction system was introduced at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP; the acronyms used in this paper are summarized in the appendix). The transition to the new system was hastened by a computer fire in September 1999 and subsequent changeover from a Cray C90 to an IBM-SP computer system....

19 We show useful seasonal deterministic and probabilistic prediction skill of 20 streamflow and nutrient loading over watersheds in the Southeastern United States 21 (SEUS) for the winter and spring seasons. The study accounts for forecast 22 uncertainties stemming from the meteorological forcing and hydrological model 23 uncertainty. Multi-model estimation from three hydrological models, each...

Influenza recurs seasonally in temperate regions of the world; however, our ability to predict the timing, duration, and magnitude of local seasonal outbreaks of influenza remains limited. Here we develop a framework for initializing real-time forecasts of seasonal influenza outbreaks, using a data assimilation technique commonly applied in numerical weather prediction. The availability of real...

Southwest monsoon rainfall (received during June–September) determines the fate of millions of dryland farmers as well as the status of national food security in India almost every year. The need for information about southwest monsoon rainfall is great in these areas. An accurate long-range forecast can help farmers increase agricultural productivity in good rainfall years and negate the sudde...

Previous research has shown that seasonal factors provide one of the most important ways to improve forecast accuracy. For example, in forecasts over an 18-month horizon for 68 monthly economic series from the MCompetition, Makridakis et al. (1984, Table 14) found that seasonal adjustments reduced the MAPE from 23.0 to 17.7 percent, an error reduction of 23%. On the other hand, research has als...

This study proposes an objective integrated seasonal forecasting system for producing well-calibrated probabilistic rainfall forecasts for South America. The proposed system has two components: (i) an empirical model that uses Pacific and Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies as predictors for rainfall and (ii) a multimodel system composed of three European coupled ocean–atmosphere models....