In FY05 NWS Western Region (WR) will introduce new local climate products into their operational product suite. The climate products will be an extension of NCEP CPC seasonal outlooks and will include additional information based on local climatic effects. Local outlook products are based on the CPC climate division (CD) probability of exceedance (POE) of seasonal temperature, and seasonal precipitation and temperature outlooks, ENSO composites and CPC Nino 3.4 consolidated Sea Surface Temperature (SST) forecasts.

The methodology used in the development of these new products, is a revision of CPC’s method for translating POE temperature outlooks to station POE. The revision includes trend adjustment criteria and station forecast procedure. The new forecast procedure uses estimates for station mean and standard deviation and a normal distribution to estimate POE ordinates. This new procedure defaults to the station climatological spread if either the CD outlook correlation skill score or the correlation between the CD and station observations are poor.

The ENSO based temperature and precipitation products are complimentary to the station POE temperature outlooks. Station records are trend adjusted if needed before a composite analysis is made. Trend adjustment assumes independence between the climate signal and the trend. Statistical significance of the composites is evaluated and included in the following forecast procedure. Both composite analysis and the forecast are included this product suite.

These products will be released on a monthly basis, and will follow CPC’s Seasonal Forecast product suite. The product design will accommodate both technical and general public customers, providing different levels of graphs, charts and explanatory text.