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On the forecast of cumulative precipitation at subseasonal time‐scales over the Sahel
Author(s) -
Vintzileos Augustin,
Thiaw Wassila M.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2006gl026663
Subject(s) - climatology , precipitation , environmental science , climate forecast system , quantitative precipitation forecast , probabilistic logic , meteorology , famine , global forecast system , geography , numerical weather prediction , geology , statistics , mathematics , archaeology
The Sahel, which is considered to be amongst the climate sensitive regions for its history of droughts and famine, and excessive precipitation and disease, is also a source for easterly waves, which upon encountering favorable conditions over the Atlantic Ocean, transform into hurricanes. Benefits from the successful forecast of key variables at subseasonal time scales are obvious. We demonstrate the capacity of the current operational version of the Climate Forecasting System (CFS) of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) to provide skillful forecasts of cumulative precipitation at subseasonal time‐scales over the Sahel region. For this we use the database of subseasonal‐to‐seasonal retrospective forecasts conducted at NCEP for the period from 1982 to 2004. Both measures of deterministic and probabilistic scores are used.