5th Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology and the 2nd International Wildland Fire Ecology and Fire Management Congress

Wednesday, 19 November 2003: 11:15 AM
Verification of ECPC’s fire climate and fire danger Forecasts
Hauss J. Reinbold, DRI, Reno, NV; and T. J. Brown, J. O. Roads, and B. L. Hall
Poster PDF (2.4 MB)
The Experimental Climate Prediction Center (ECPC) at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography has been making extended Global Spectral Model (GSM) and Regional Spectral Model (RSM) forecasts since September 1997. Based on the GSM, the RSM produces 16-week forecasts of common atmospheric variables such as temperature, relative humidity and precipitation for the continental United States every weekend. In addition to atmospheric variables, the RSM also calculates fire danger indices including the Burning Index, Spread component, Ignition Component and Energy Release Component. In order to establish the usefulness of the models for the wildfire community, and model skill assessment for the researchers, the forecasts are analyzed in relation to Remote Automatic Weather Station (RAWS) observations at weekly, monthly, and seasonal time scales utilizing a number of quantitative skill measures. This paper will present results of the model forecast skill analysis.

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