zotCAMS Forecast Challenge!

Hi all, Morgan here,

I wanted to give you a look into how I chose my precipitation forecast for the zotCAMS forecast challenge! We are forecasting Dec-Jan (winter) precipitation. A data source I use in my research is PRISM from Oregon State. They have a very nice interactive map under the “Explorer” tab. I put in coordinates for John Wayne Airport and looked at a few different numbers:

I first started by calculating the 1981-2010 30-year normal for monthly precipitation, and found on average winter precipitation was 7.24 inches. However, this data stopped 7 years ago! So I also decided to look at 2010-2017 monthly precipitation values (using the “Single month values” option, then click “Retrieve Time Series” at the bottom). For January, I found from 2010 to 2017, precipitation ranged from 0-7.89in. Wow! What a spread… To get rid of some noise, I decided to “throw away” the top 2 months and bottom 2 months of precipitation, which left me with an average of 1.25 inches. I took the same approach for December (making sure to grab the previous year’s December) and February, and calculated an average precipitation of 2.02 inches for Dec. and 0.81 inches for February. Combined, these monthly averages sum to 4.08 inches. Overall, from 2010-2017, the driest winter was 1.21 inches and the wettest winter was 15.3 inches.

Now the question is, will this year be an average year? That’s up for you to decide… but, I’ll tell you my forecast will probably be somewhere between 4-7 inches!

Happy forecasting!
Morgan