Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo
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Reduction to Practice Challenge
Launched December 2016
Registration closes May 13, 2017
Water managers need more skillful information on weather and climate conditions with lead-times ranging from 15 days to 45 days and beyond. Lacking skillful sub-seasonal information limits water managers’ ability prepare for shifts in hydrologic regimes, such as the onset of drought or occurrence of wet weather extremes. The challenge of sub-seasonal forecasting is that it encompasses the time frame where initial state information (e.g., coupled landatmosphere processes) becomes less important and slowly varying long term states (e.g., sea surface temperatures, soil moisture, snow pack) become more important to prediction skill. In response, Reclamation is launching a forecasting prize competition where solvers will submit forecasts of temperature and precipitation for one year, competing in real-time against other teams as well as official forecasts from NOAA. Recognizing NOAA’s leadership and role in forecasting, Reclamation has partnered with NOAA on this competition. To be eligible for prizes, solvers with skillful performance during the competition will be required to submit documentation of their forecast technique. This Challenge will be active for approximately 17 months, starting with a 3-month development period followed by a 1-month “pre-season”, and a 12-month competition period.
