How would the TSR seasonal forecasts have performed as a function of monthly lead time had they been available in previous years? The figures on this page show the TSR model skill and its associated 95% confidence interval at monthly leads out to 10 months. Skill is assessed for the 15 year period 1988 to 2002 and, in several cases, for either the 51 year period 1952 to 2002 or the 53 year period 1950 to 2002.
The forecasts for 1988 to 2002 are made in Replicated Real-Time mode while the hindcasts for 1952 to 2002 or for 1950 to 2002 are made in Cross-Validation mode with correction for potential skill inflation from serial correlation.
The Skill Score and Uncertainty section describes our skill score measure, confidence interval calculation and how to interpret the skill plots. When examining skill plots, the 'P', appearing on the abscissa in some, denotes the skill with perfect climate predictors. The 'Forecast Date' indicates that forecasts are issued on about the 6th of the month in question, that is, after climate information from the previous month has been assimilated into the model.
Hindcast skill plots are available for the following ACE Indices, storm categories and climate indicators:
- Hurricanes - Atlantic ACE Index and USA and Caribbean Landfalling
- Typhoons - NW Pacific ACE Index and Basin Numbers
- Australian Cyclones - Australian Region Total Numbers
- El Niño Southern Oscillation Sea Surface Temperature
- Tropical North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature
- Tropical North Atlantic/Northeast Pacific Trade Wind Speed
