Weather regime forecasts are a prominent use case of sub-seasonal prediction in the midlatitudes. A systematic evaluation and understanding of year-round sub-seasonal regime forecast performance is yet still missing. Here we evaluate the representation of and forecast skill for seven year-round Atlantic-European weather regimes in sub-seasonal reforecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Forecast calibration improves regime frequency biases and forecast skill most strongly in summer but hardly in winter due to considerable large-scale flow biases in summer. The average regime skill horizon in winter is about five days longer than in summer and spring, and three days longer than in autumn. The Zonal Regime and Greenland Blocking tend to have the longest year-round skill horizon, which is driven by their high persistence in winter. The year-round skill is lowest for the European Blocking, which is common for all seasons but most pronounced in winter and spring. For the related, more northern Scandinavian Blocking, the skill is similarly low in winter and spring but higher in summer and autumn. We further show that the winter average regime skill horizon tends to be enhanced following a strong stratospheric polar vortex (SPV) but reduced following a weak SPV. Likewise, the year-round average regime skill horizon tends to be enhanced following phases 4 and 7 of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) but reduced following phase 2, driven by winter but also autumn and spring. Our study thus reveals promising potential for year-round sub-seasonal regime predictions. Further model improvements can be achieved by reducing the considerable large-scale flow biases in summer, better understanding and modelling blocking in the European region, and better exploiting the potential predictability provided by weak SPV states and specific MJO phases in winter and the transition seasons.

Year?round sub?seasonal forecast skill for Atlantic?European weather regimes (wiley.com)

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