Search

Traditional pointwise verification scores are not always appropriate for the evaluation of high‐resolution precipitation forecasts because of double‐penalty problems. An alternative approach, based on the identification of homogeneous rainfall areas called "precipitating objects", allows forecast evaluation at a larger and thus more predictable scale, and specific information about the nature of errors (e.g. location, size, intensity) can be obtained. A novel object detection method is first introduced and the object‐based verification of precipitation forecasts from the convective‐scale deterministic and ensemble models Arome and Arome‐EPS is then discussed, using several scores and diagnostics. Three types of precipitating objects characterizing total, moderate and heavy rainfall are considered. In the second part, object‐based metrics are used to compute objective weights for time‐lagged ensemble forecasts, based on their performance at early forecast ranges. The weights obtained clearly depend on the meteorological situation and on the precipitation type, reflecting for instance the lower predictability of moderate precipitation compared to total precipitation. There is also a dependence on the production time with, on average, slightly larger and more homogeneous weights associated with the most recent run. However, in some situations of moderate and heavy rainfall, a relevant signal can be extracted from older runs. It is finally shown that object‐based weights are better suited than classical quadratic weights to improve nowcasting performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative benefits of ensemble size and model resolution are investigated within the AROME-France convective-scale ensemble prediction system (EPS), which operationally runs 12 perturbed members at 2.5 km horizontal resolution. This baseline configuration is compared with two auxiliary ensemble experiments, which are run at resolutions of 2.5 and 1.3 km, with 34 and 12 members respectively. In addition, post-processing techniques including neighbourhood approaches and time-lagging are examined as potential alternatives to increase the sample size at a lower computational cost. Probabilistic verification of the raw EPS outputs indicates that increasing model resolution is more beneficial at very short ranges, whereas increasing the ensemble size has a larger impact at longer forecast ranges, as predictability decreases and more members are required to sample the larger uncertainty better. The neighbourhood processing confirms these conclusions and is shown to improve precipitation forecasts of all EPS configurations significantly, especially the smaller-size ensembles. Hence, it can be considered as a viable substitute to running additional AROME members for the first 24 h of forecasts. Time-lagging of three successive ensemble productions also appears to be a competitive approach to improve the ensemble forecast skill, particularly at very short ranges, where AROME-EPS is known to be underdispersive. The performance of the time-lagged 36 member ensemble is generally close to or even better than the performance of the single 34 member ensemble for the whole forecast range and for different surface weather variables. Overall, given the relative costs and skills of the different EPS configurations, we suggest that resources should primarily be spent on increasing ensemble size, by combining both additional members and post-processing methods. In addition, the performance of the 1.3 km ensemble should be examined further for explicit high-impact weather and with an appropriate tuning of physics and surface perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The AROME-EPS convection-permitting ensemble prediction system has been evaluated over the HyMeX-SOP1 period. Objective verification scores are computed using dense observing networks prepared for the HyMeX experiment. In probabilistic terms, the AROME-EPS ensemble performs better than the AROME-France deterministic prediction system, and a state-of-the-art ensemble at a lower resolution. The strengths and weaknesses of AROME-EPS are discussed. Here, impact experiments are used to study perturbation schemes for the initial conditions and the model surface. Both have a significant effect on the ensemble performance. The interactions between the perturbations of lateral boundaries, initial conditions and surface perturbations are studied. The consistency between initial and lateral perturbations is found to be unimportant from a meteorological point of view. Ensemble data assimilation is not as effective as a simpler surface perturbation scheme, and it is noted that both approaches could be usefully combined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convective-scale ensemble prediction systems (EPSs) are often initialized with downscaled initial condition perturbations (ICPs) from a global coarser EPS. Although downscaled ICPs have been shown to have a positive impact at short ranges, they cannot represent the uncertainty at small scales. Hence, there is a spin-up of around 9-12 h until the forecast perturbations develop realistic small-scale structures. On the other hand, ensemble data assimilation (EDA) is a common approach to obtain initial perturbations at all scales resolved by the numerical model. However, the high computational cost of EDA systems severely limits their size and their resolution. An alternative cheaper method to derive small-scale ICPs is considered here, based on a random sampling of themodel backgrounderror covariances. This article provides an evaluation of random and EDA-based IC perturbation methods against the baseline downscaling approach, in the framework of the pre-operational convective-scale EPS developed at Météo-France with the AROME-France model at a 2.5 km horizontal resolution. Small-scale IC perturbation methods are shown to significantly improve the short-range EPS performance for surface weather variables. For 2m temperature and 10m wind speed, random ICPs give as good results as the EDA, owing to the very short spin-up of random perturbations. Precipitation forecasts are also strongly improved during the first six forecast hours, especially when initial humidity perturbations are included. The sensitivity of the EPS performance to the EDA size, horizontal resolution and representation of model errors is discussed. It is found that a large fraction of the initial uncertainty can be properly described with an EDA of reasonable size and at a slightly coarser resolution than the EPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since agriculture is highly exposed to weather-related risks such as drought constraints, Decision Support Tools (DSTs) are now frequently used in irrigation management. The current use of DSTs mainly relies on deterministic weather forecasts that do not account for the associated weather uncertainties. Few irrigation DST users take uncertainty into consideration by utilizing an ensemble of historical weather observations (EHO) as input to their models. In order to account for the atmospheric state uncertainties, weather centers are progressively shifting to ensemble predictions. This is done by running several times the numerical weather prediction model with slightly perturbed initial conditions and model formulations. The final forecast hence takes the form of an ensemble instead of a deterministic single value. However, ensemble forecasts could present bias and dispersion errors and therefore need post-processing. In this work, we introduce a novel approach that uses ensemble weather forecasts as input to a vine irrigation DST, named "Water baLance for Intercropped Systems" (WaLIS), that computes a crop water stress index as output. Our results show that this approach has significantly better probabilistic performance than the use of EHO as input to the WaLIS model, especially between forecast days 5 and 7 (∼ 35% of gain in performance). We also investigate the effect of statistical post-processing on the probabilistic skill of the water stress index with two different approaches. In the first case, we directly post-process the output of the WaLIS model. In the second case, only weather forecasts are post-processed, before being used as inputs of the WaLIS model. Our results show that locally in 4 out of 10 tested sites in southern France, the raw ensemble forecasts could be significantly improved by the post-processing, and that generally there is no significant performance difference between the two competing post-processing approaches. • Weather-induced uncertainty on a crop water stress model predictions is studied. • WaLIS model is used to simulate water stress in 10 southern France vine sites. • Weather ensemble forecasts are better than historical data in predicting water stress. • The most significant performance gain (∼ 35%) is between 5 and 7 days of forecast. • Post-processing predictions with Ensemble Model Output Statistics can improve the performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensemble prediction systems at the convective scale are often under-dispersive. In order to alleviate this problem, a time-lagged ensemble can be created from ensemble forecasts initialized at different production times. While an equal-weight combination of lagged forecasts generally provides competitive results, this article introduces and discusses the efficiency of an objective weighting. The proposed approach is based on nonlinear Bayesian filtering, and the weights are determined online for each member according to the observation likelihood. The method is illustrated with short-range ensemble forecasts provided by the cloud-resolving AROME-France model. A time-lagged ensemble is then constructed from the current ensemble forecasts combined with older ensemble forecasts started 6 and 12 h earlier. It is first shown that the weighting scheme provides reasonable results, in particular it is able to detect differences in forecast quality due to different production times. The question whether these unequal flow-dependent weights can be successfully applied to the members of the time-lagged ensemble is then examined. Results indicate that the weighting does not lead to a noticeable gain in forecast quality. Possible reasons for this limited impact are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]