Evaluation of NCEP TIGGE short-range forecast for Indian summer monsoon intraseasonal oscillation

Abstract

This study focuses on the short-range prediction of Monsoon Intraseasonal Oscillations (MISOs) using the National Centers for Environmental Prediction(NCEP) Ensemble Prediction System (EPS) data from The Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment (THORPEX) Interactive Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) archive. The Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR), which plays an important role in the socio-economic growth of the country, is highly variable and is mostly governed by the MISOs. In addition to this, deterministic forecasts of ISMR are not very reliable. Hence, a probabilistic approach at daily scale is required. Keeping this in mind, the present analysis is done by using daily forecast data for up to 7-day lead time and compared with observations. The analysis shows that the ensemble forecast well captures the variability as compared to observations even up to 7 days. The spatial characteristics and the northward propagation of MISO are observed thoroughly in the EPS. The evolution of dynamical and thermodynamical parameters such as specific humidity, moist static energy, moisture divergence, and vorticity is also captured well but show deviation from the observation from 96 h lead time onwards. The tropospheric temperature forecast captures the observed gradient but with certain bias in magnitude whereas the wind shear is simulated quite well both in pattern and magnitude. These analyses bring out the biases in TIGGE EPS forecast and also point out the possible moist processes which needs to be improved.