January Wrap-Up

Europe Best Places to Live Report: Forecast Skill

The skill of Europe weather forecasts in 2022, relative to persistence (assuming that the same weather will continue for the next few days), was greatest in Belgium and immediate adjoining areas of France, Germany, and The Netherlands. This is the only area on the European continent that saw forecasts capture over 40% more temperatures and precipitation accurately than persistence did.

Most of the rest of the continent saw skill between 30% and 40%, though areas with little variety in daily weather, such as most of the United Kingdom and Ireland, small islands in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, and areas of the Mediterranean coast, saw skill of less than 30%. This is because it is tough to have forecasts improve upon daily weather that already does not vary much on a daily basis.

Best Forecast Skill in the World

As with the United States and Europe, forecast skill is typically best where persistence performs worst; in other words, it is easier for weather forecasters to improve upon persistence where the weather varies the most from day to day, given the technology we have to get a good idea about how weather will change.

That said, the best skill in weather forecasts in the entire world in 2022 was found in a strip of land from the Midwest United States northeast to New England and southeast Canada, where some of the most daily variety in the world is found. A small part of southeast South America, mostly in Uruguay and surrounding areas, and a tiny part of Europe around Belgium, also see skill with weather forecasts having improvement of 40% and higher over persistence.

The parts of the world with the lowest forecast skill, unsurprisingly, are found in the tropics, where weather already varies little from day to day and is thus already very predictable. Thus, it’s hard to improve upon that! Northern South America, India, and Southeast Asia see the most widespread areas of low forecast skill.

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