TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION FORECAST VERIFICATION TRENDS AT THE ALBANY FORECAST OFFICE: FORECASTERS CONTINUE TO SHOW IMPROVEMENT ON MOS GUIDANCE- PART II

During the past several years, there has been an increasing call for the automation of public forecasts issued by the National Weather Service (NWS). This call is the result of national verification statistics which show that, when all forecasts are averaged together, the improvement of NWS forecasters over computer-generated forecasts of maximum I minimum temperature and prob-ability of precipitation is small. Howevel; grouping all forecasts in such a manner can hide certain trends which have been evident to field forecasters for many years, namely, that computer-generated forecasts are excellent and hard to beat when the weather is seasonably normal, but field forecasters do much better when the weather is unusual. This paper will present the results of a verifica-tion study which shows that, for certain significant weath-er events, field forecasters at the Albany, New York, fore-cast office have the ability to substantially improve upon computer-generated forecasts of both the temperature and the probability of precipitation. In addition, for all fore-casts combined, this paper will show that the decrease in forecaster ability to improve upon computer-generated forecasts that occurred when a new generation of guid-ance was implemented during the summer of 1993, may have been temporary. This verification study will also examine individual forecaster trends and the differences between veteran and novice forecasters. This paper is a fol-low-up study to Maglal"as (1998). Maglaras (1998) described the results of a study which showed a signifi-cant correlation between abnormal temperature patterns and the ability of Albany, New York, forecasters to improve upon computer-generated forecasts of both the tempera-ture and the probability of precipitation. 1