New Experimental PQPF products from CDC

Jeff Whitaker, Tom Hamill and Xue Wei

NOAA Climate Diagnostics Center, Boulder CO

Abstract:

In this talk I'll present some new probabilistic precipitation forecast products derived from the CDC reforecast ensemble (now running operationally at NCEP). These products are created using forecast analogs, a technique that seeks to calculate the conditional climatology of observed weather given the ensemble mean forecast. The resulting PQPF forecasts are significantly more skillful (a 2-3 day increase in lead time in some cases) than those computing using the operational GFS ensemble. Interesting variations in precipitation predictability over the continental U.S. and the seasonal cycle will also be discussed.