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Evaluation of sub-seasonal to seasonal rainfall forecast over Zambia

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Highlights

  • Monthly S2S reforecast for 20 years obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) were evaluated against the in-situ rainfall data over Zambia using 1-month lead time forecast.

  • The two datasets agree with the rainfall pattern throughout the year thereby, the S2S ECMWF realistically simulates the mean annual cycle skillfully by identifying the wet season from November to March (NDJFM), and the driest season as June to September (JJAS), in agreement with the observations.

  • The S2S ECMWF exhibits a better performance during wet months compared to dry months though depicted a slight wet bias in estimating the observed variation during the wet season.

  • The lowest spatial average value of RMSE and MAE during the wet season (NDJFM) was observed in March while the highest RMSE and MAE were recorded in December.

  • The CRPSS in most of the stations during the wet season (NDJFM) had positive values, while during dry months the results show most of the stations having negative CRPSS values.

Abstract

In this study, monthly S2S reforecast for 20 years obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) were evaluated against the in-situ data. The spatial results show that the two datasets agree with the rainfall pattern throughout the year. The S2S ECMWF realistically simulates the mean annual cycle skillfully by identifying the wet season from November to March (NDJFM), and the driest season as June to September (JJAS), in agreement with the observations. However, the depicted slight wet bias in estimating the observed variation during the wet season. Nevertheless, the ECMWF S2S exhibits a better performance during wet months compared to dry months. This study provides insights into the performance of S2S forecasts and their potential application over Zambia. Future studies need to focus on explaining the observed discrepancies and improvement of S2S forecasts in the region, particularly by the modelling centers.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41575111), and the Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, CAS (2018LDE003). The authors are appreciative of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), China for creating an environment suitable for research. Since thanks also go to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The organizations that provided the datasets used are highly acknowledged. We are grateful to the editors and team of experts who reviewed this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210 044, Jiangsu, China

    Bathsheba Musonda, Yuanshu Jing & Matthews Nyasulu

  2. Zambia Meteorological Department, PO Box 30200, Lusaka, Zambia

    Bathsheba Musonda

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210 044, Jiangsu, China

    Lucia Mumo

  4. College of Atmospheric Science, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210 044, Jiangsu, China

    Yuanshu Jing & Lucia Mumo

Authors
  1. Bathsheba Musonda
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  2. Yuanshu Jing
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  3. Matthews Nyasulu
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  4. Lucia Mumo
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Contributions

Bathsheba Musonda conceived the presented idea and executed the computations. Bathsheba Musonda, Matthew Nyasulu, and Lucia Mano analyzed the results from the computations. Bathsheba Musonda wrote the manuscript and Yuanshu Jing supervised the findings of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bathsheba Musonda.

Additional information

Communicated by Kavirajan Rajendran

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Musonda, B., Jing, Y., Nyasulu, M. et al. Evaluation of sub-seasonal to seasonal rainfall forecast over Zambia. J Earth Syst Sci 130, 47 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-020-01548-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-020-01548-0

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