New Local Climate Outlook Products from the NWS Jay Breidenbach NOAA/National Weather Service

Outline  Introduce the new Local 3-Month Temperature Outlook (L3MTO)  Where to find Climate Products on Web  Downscaling Methodology  Product Benefits and Limitations  Future Local Climate Products

L3MTO Facts  The NWS is downscaling/transforming Climate Prediction Center’s (CPC) large scale 3-month temperature outlooks to specific locations  The L3MTO is: Produced centrally at CPC Disseminated via local WFO climate websites Released simultaneously with CPC’s 3-month outlook product suite (3 rd Thursday every month) Produced for approximately 10 sites per WFO, or about 1150 sites nationwide – can potentially increase to ~4,000 sites

How the Product was Developed CD data Station data Regression Analysis Trend Significance Station Forecast Solution Verification filter Annual routine: CPC CD forecast Mean and St. Dev. Monthly routine: No Significant? Bivariate statistics Regression Coefficients Intercept Adjustment Yes Sufficient Score? Forecast data Distribution and Display Yes Climatology Data No y = mx + b (where m = slope and b = y-intercept) Graph Courtesy of Nicole Kempf

Outlook Evaluation  Access to the outlook evaluation is available on every display of the L3MTO  This tool can be used for both the national and the local 3-month temperature outlooks  Evaluation statistics can be computed for any combination of 3-month periods and/or years during 1994 to present (2003)  Allows the user to select different types of skill scores

Questions and Feedback  The “Questions and Feedback” tab links users to an online form to provide comments  User feedback is important, as this product will be evolving based on this feedback.

The L3MTO is now Available on all WFO Websites

L3MTO Benefits  More spatial detail – higher resolution outlooks  The L3TMO suite provides multiple presentation formats to accommodate a wide range of users  Includes helpful resources for interpretation  Available locally, on all WFO webpages; higher visibility

L3MTO Limitations  Does not provide detail about the month- to-month or day-to-day variability  It’s a probabilistic forecast more challenging to explain Because this product is an extension of the national 3-month outlook to the local level, it will naturally inherit the national product’s skill

What About Precipitation?  Precipitation is a much more complicated element to downscale  The precipitation downscaling methodology is under development  The product’s webpage design will be identical to the L3MTO design

ENSO Based Composites  Initially will include temperature and precipitation  Eventually other parameters will be added – WFOs will choose  ENSO based composites will be combined with CPC’s Nino 3.4 SST forecast – if the results are significant, then a forecast will accompany the L3MTO.

Thank You!! Please visit any WFO website to view these new products.