Strategies for the verification of ensemble
weather element forecasts
Laurence J. Wilson
Recherche en Prévision Numérique
Meteorological Service of Canada
Abstract:
Ensemble forecasts present distributions of forecast weather elements
valid for each location and projection time. The meaningful
verification of these forecasts against observations calls for the
design of new verification measures, or at least the careful redesign of
existing verification methods. Verification methods for ensemble
forecasts are of two types: those which are intended to assess one or
more aspects of the quality of the whole ensemble distribution, and
those which evaluate probability forecasts extracted from the ensemble
distribution.
This presentation comprises a survey of both aspects of ensemble
verification, and will be illustrated with examples of the assessment of
the Canadian ensemble forecasts and those from ECMWF.