Seasonal Precipitation Forecast Over Morocco

International audience Interannual variability of precipitation is a challenge for water management in semiarid Morocco, where droughts are common and take a heavy toll on agricultural production. The question of forecast potential for winter and spring rainfall is therefore crucial for the country....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water Resources Research
Main Authors: Tuel, A., Eltahir, E.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03346840
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03346840/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03346840/file/2018_WRR_Seasonal_Precipitation_Forecast_over_Morocco.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1029/2018wr022984
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Summary:International audience Interannual variability of precipitation is a challenge for water management in semiarid Morocco, where droughts are common and take a heavy toll on agricultural production. The question of forecast potential for winter and spring rainfall is therefore crucial for the country. As an addition to dynamical seasonal predictions, taking the case of the Oum Er Rbia watershed, the present study builds simple statistical forecasting models for Morocco's winter and spring precipitation, making use of oceanic forcing of atmospheric circulation. Previous results on the teleconnections between North Atlantic wintertime circulation and lagged ocean surface temperatures are confirmed. Based on a careful identification and selection of predictors, about 35-40% of interannual variability of precipitation may be robustly predictable with a lead time of 1 month.