News Release Archive

Meet the teams who won the Sub-seasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo — beating benchmark forecasts

Bureau of Reclamation and NOAA Office of Weather and Air Quality are bringing the winners in to share their forecast models and discuss how to further improve the three to six week forecast timeframes

Media Contact: Peter Soeth, 303-445-3615, psoeth@usbr.gov

For Release: June 12, 2019

Improving sub-seasonal forecasts of temperature and precipitation will enable water managers to better prepare for shifts in hydrologic regimes, including at reservoirs like this one.WASHINGTON — The Bureau of Reclamation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Weather and Air Quality are hosting a symposium with the winners of Reclamation's Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo I on June 17, 2019, from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. EDT in Silver Spring, Maryland. The year-long real-time forecasting competition Rodeo I ended this past winter with three teams successfully meeting award criteria focused on predicting western United States temperature and precipitation for weeks 3 & 4 and weeks 5 & 6.

This symposium is open to the public. You may join in person or via a webinar. To learn more and register, please visit https://www.usbr.gov/research/challenges/SCFRS-2019.html.

Improved sub-seasonal forecasts of temperature and precipitation would enable water managers to better prepare for shifts in hydrologic regimes, such as the onset of drought or occurrence of wet weather extremes. The challenge of sub-seasonal forecasting is that it encompasses the time frame where initial state information becomes less important and slowly varying long term states become more important to prediction skill.

The representatives from the three winning teams will be present to share and discuss their forecast models. The three winning teams are:

Team Salient - Ray Schmitt, Stephen Schmitt, and Eric Schmitt
Team StillLearning - Lester Mackey, Judah Cohen, Jessica Hwang, Ernest Fraenkel, Paulo Orenstein
Team lupoa13 - Anthony Lupo, Joseph Renken, Joshua Herman

Reclamation collaborated with the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, and California Department of Water Resources to design and judge this challenge. In addition, the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contributed subject matter experts to review and assist with competition design.

# # #

The Bureau of Reclamation is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior and is the nation's largest wholesale water supplier and second largest producer of hydroelectric power. Our facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation opportunities, and environmental benefits. Visit our website at https://www.usbr.gov and follow us on Twitter @USBR; Facebook @bureau.of.reclamation; LinkedIn @Bureau of Reclamation; Instagram @bureau_of_reclamation; and YouTube @reclamation.

Relevant Link:

Sub-seasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo I Symposium