Improving quantitative precipitation forecasts in the warm season: A USWRP research and development strategy

Herein the major findings of the workshop are summarized, including an overarching strategy to achieve improved predictive skill and recommendations for future research and development. Improving warm-season QPFs requires a substantial and sustained commitment of resources focusing on a complex suite of issues. The basic strategy is to take those steps that will facilitate forecasting deep, moist convection in a fully probabilistic manner wherein the statistical properties of the forecast convection are similar to those observed in nature.

A warm-season QPF program should be inclusive of a testbed framework, wherein development and testing of each and all components of the forecast system can be conducted; impediments to operations can be identified and corrected; and socioeconomic value, at the margin, can be researched and identified.