Hotspots of Predictability: Identifying Regions of High Precipitation Predictability at Seasonal Timescales From Limited Time Series Observations

Abstract

Precipitation prediction at seasonal timescales is important for planning and management of water resources as well as preparedness for hazards such as floods, droughts and wildfires. Quantifying predictability is quite challenging as a consequence of a large number of potential drivers, varying antecedent conditions, and small sample size of high‐quality observations available at seasonal timescales, that in turn, increases prediction uncertainty and the risk of model overfitting. Here, we introduce a generalized probabilistic framework to account for these issues and assess predictability under uncertainty. We focus on prediction of winter (Nov–Mar) precipitation across the contiguous United States, using sea surface temperature‐derived indices (averaged in Aug–Oct) as predictors. In our analysis we identify “predictability hotspots,” which we define as regions where precipitation is inherently more predictable. Our framework estimates the entire predictive distribution of precipitation using copulas and quantifies prediction uncertainties, while employing principal component analysis for dimensionality reduction and a cross validation technique to avoid overfitting. We also evaluate how predictability changes across different quantiles of the precipitation distribution (dry, normal, wet amounts) using a multi‐category 3 × 3 contingency table. Our results indicate that well‐defined predictability hotspots occur in the Southwest and Southeast. Moreover, extreme dry and wet conditions are shown to be relatively more predictable compared to normal conditions. Our study may help with water resources management in several subregions of the United States and can be used to assess the fidelity of earth system models in successfully representing teleconnections and predictability.

Key Points

• We present a rigorous probabilistic framework and novel statistical metrics to assess the predictability of seasonal precipitation totals

• Hotspots of winter precipitation predictability occur in the Southwest and Southeast of contiguous United States (CONUS)

• Sea Surface Temperature (SST) information may help with predicting dry or wet conditions in some areas, while normal conditions are difficult to predict