Designing and automating CariCOF forecast verification products in CPT and CAROGEN

The project is part of the Intra-ACP Climate Services and Related Applications (ClimSA) Programme funded by the EU, and as a subcontract through the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH). The ClimSA program aims to strengthen the climate services value chain: from access to information, to generation and provision of climate services, to engagement and ability of users to ensure utilization of these services. SEI’s role in this project is to facilitate the verification of forecasts produced by CIMH and national meteorological and hydrological services in the Caribbean, as well as to evaluate the full history of forecasts generated through the Caribbean Climate Outlook Forums (CariCOF) and monthly updates. The project involves:

• Development of the verification functionality of the Climate Predictability Tool (CPT+): CPT+ is being developed to facilitate verification of forecasts in the following ways:
  • A new option to plot verification maps showing the verifying category of the variable being forecasted, known as the predictand (e.g. maps of observed rainfall categories shaded by the observed percentile);
  • Enabling of a varying climatological period in CPT’s probabilistic forecast verification option to facilitate the verification of a long history of forecasts;
  • Addition of some new verification scores and procedures for predictands measured on two, rather than three, categories;
  • Implementation of a new option to verify interval-based forecasts.
• Evaluation of the full history of the standard CariCOF forecast products using World Meteorological Organization (WMO)-recommended procedures: A report will be produced to indicate the skill of the forecasts and to provide guidance on any systematic errors in the forecasts. The verification is a required function of CIMH’s role as a WMO-designated regional climate centre.
• Facilitation of the automated update of verification information in CAROGEN: CAROGEN is CIMH’s automated forecast generator. It will be developed to use CPT+’s new verification functionality to update verification information each time new observations are available to verify recent forecasts.