Seasonal Weather forecast: their development, need and role for extreme event prediction especially for severe windstorms
Lisa Degenhardt *1, Gregor C. Leckebusch 1,2
1 School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science, University of Birmingham, UK, LXD943@student.bham.ac.uk
2 Institute for Meteorology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
The scientific field of meteorology is separated into many different areas of research and applications. The probably most popular fields of activity are weather forecast which predicts parameters for days or weeks and the climate change studies which investigate the development of the atmosphere-ocean climate system over years and decades. In between other important physical processes will lead to variability on time scale like months or several years. Consequently, seasonal to sub-decadal predictions gain more interest in scientific and industry applications.
Different meteorological institutions started to develop seasonal forecast products and investigated this in-between time sector. The UK Met Office or the ECMWF are world-leading with their seasonal forecast suites, the Global Seasonal forecast system version 5 (GloSea5, UK Met Office) and ECMWF System 5, respectively.
One extreme phenomenon which appears mainly on a seasonal scale especially for Europe are extreme cyclones producing in winter extreme high wind speeds over large areas, so called windstorms. If skilful, seasonal forecast can easily be utilized to investigate the upcoming storm season. Severe winter windstorms like Ciara (February 2020) are highly likely to cause severe damages especially if they affect densely populated regions (like the UK, France, Germany, etc.). Therefore, a good and reliable forecast for the upcoming winter season is useful, not only for the society or insurance sector but also for the general public. This study analyses a new seasonal storm forecast data set with respect to storm frequency and intensity, alongside influencing factors which cause positive or negative forecasts.
Comments