Year‐round sub‐seasonal forecast skill for Atlantic–European weather regimes

• Published in: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
• Main Authors: Büeler, Dominik, Ferranti, Laura, Magnusson, Linus, Quinting, Julian F., Grams, Christian M., Ferranti, Laura; 2 European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reading UK, Magnusson, Linus; 2 European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reading UK, Quinting, Julian F.; 1 Department Troposphere Research Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK‐TRO), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Karlsruhe Germany, Grams, Christian M.; 1 Department Troposphere Research Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK‐TRO), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Karlsruhe Germany
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2021
• Subjects: ddc:551.6; blocking; Europe; European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts; Madden–Julian Oscillation; stratospheric polar vortex; sub‐seasonal forecast; weather regimes; year‐round; Greenland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4178; http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gldocs-11858/9847

Weather regime forecasts are a prominent use case of sub‐seasonal prediction in the midlatitudes. A systematic evaluation and understanding of year‐round sub‐seasonal regime forecast performance is still missing, however. Here we evaluate the representation of and forecast skill for seven year‐round Atlantic–European weather regimes in sub‐seasonal reforecasts from the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts. Forecast calibration improves regime frequency biases and forecast skill most strongly in summer, but scarcely in winter, due to considerable large‐scale flow biases in summer. The average regime skill horizon in winter is about 5 days longer than in summer and spring, and 3 days longer than in autumn. The Zonal Regime and Greenland Blocking tend to have the longest year‐round skill horizon, which is driven by their high persistence in winter. The year‐round skill is lowest for the European Blocking, which is common for all seasons but most pronounced in winter and spring. For the related, more northern Scandinavian Blocking, the skill is similarly low in winter and spring but higher in summer and autumn. We further show that the winter average regime skill horizon tends to be enhanced following a strong stratospheric polar vortex (SPV), but reduced following a weak SPV. Likewise, the year‐round average regime skill horizon tends to be enhanced following phases 4 and 7 of the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) but reduced following phase 2, driven by winter but also autumn and spring. Our study thus reveals promising potential for year‐round sub‐seasonal regime predictions. Further model improvements can be achieved by reduction of the considerable large‐scale flow biases in summer, better understanding and modeling of blocking in the European region, and better exploitation of the potential predictability provided by weak SPV states and specific MJO phases in winter and the transition seasons. The overall sub‐seasonal forecast performance (biases and skill) for predicting seven year‐round ...