This web page has four main goals: 1) Provide a clearinghouse for official NWS/NOAA seasonal forecasts and outlooks for the Florida region. 2) Provide an easy method to monitor meteorological measurements of the progress of the seasons through links to official NWS products and , locally-produced, graphical products. 3) Provide graphical dry season forecasts and localized meteorological interpretation of official forecasts, and 4) Provide educational material to help users such as emergency managers, planners, forecasters and the public to better understand the physical relationships between ENSO and Florida weather and the predictability of these relationships to better aid preparedness and mitigation efforts.

The achievement of these goals involves the development of graphical products, interpretative adaptive forecasts and educational material that each have some component of risk that should be understood by users.

Goal 1 is met by linking to information from official NOAA/NWS sources, primarily the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and users should review the disclaimers associated with these products on the CPC web site and base their risk of use from information contained there.

Goal 2 is met by providing links to official climate monitoring information and by providing locally developed graphics so that users can monitor the progress of the seasons versus normal and assess the progress of the forecasts. The monitoring graphics do not contain any forecast components and are constructed using official CPC data; however, errors could arise during data processing and plotting of these products. In addition, the quantities represented are in some cases a synthesis of various meteorological parameters and calculations and an understanding of what they represent is necessary for proper interpretation. Risk of use - Low .

Goal 3 is met by providing products intended to forecast selected mean atmospheric conditions and accumulated atmospheric phenomena over the breadth of Florida and the adjacent northeast Gulf of Mexico and the span of the 6-month dry season. Three l forecast product groups are produced: 1) a Graphical Seasonal Outlook - a summary of ENSO, Storminess, Precipitation, and Temperature outlooks that are an adaptive blend of seasonal forecasts and official forecasts, 2) a textual seasonal forecast discussion that expands on the reasoning behind the Graphical Seasonal Outlook, and 3) raw dry season forecast parameters presented as time series of actual values versus predicted values. Their purpose is to provide a representation of statewide/regional meteorological impacts expected from 1 November to 30 April each dry season relative to normal to provide early warning of significant climatic extremes to increase situational awareness. Users should keep abreast of the day-to-day hazardous weather threats within a season by referring to NWS Graphical Hazardous Weather Outlook pages .

Extreme weather events can occur within the forecast area and have significant local impacts even though the seasonal measures forecast here are not extreme. For example, record breaking rainfall could occur over an area of, say, several counties, while the broader forecast area remains in serious long-term drought. Likewise, a singular extreme weather event such as the "Superstorm" of March 1993 could occur and cause widespread destruction and human impact within an otherwise quiescent season. Potential users should review all of the linked supporting educational material to better understand the forecast process, confidence factors, and assumptions of physical relationships between ENSO and Florida weather before proceeding:

The seasonal forecasts employ multiple linear regression techniques and are based solely on the official observed and forecast NINO 3.4 and 3.0 values from the CPC and historical weather data for the Florida region. Serious errors can arise from the fact that the predictive equations are based on CPC forecasts of NINO 3.4 and 3.0 as much as 12 months in advance. The accuracy of these forecasts will have a bearing on the accuracy of the regression equations. ENSO is the dominate environmental factor in dry season weather extremes in Florida, but it is not the only factor. Forecast verification is generally quite good for well-defined moderate to strong La Nina/El Nino trends. The multiple linear regression equations do not fully account for all the variability in the atmosphere, and can have significant deviation from reality in some seasons when the ENSO signal is weak or near neutral. Other phenomena such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Arctic Oscillation (AO) and Pacific-North American (PNA) Oscillation may play important roles in some years, and these are neither well understood or forecast. Our latest research report provides more background on these oscillations and issues of predictability.

There is a well-documented concern of providing decision makers with too many forecasts or with competing/conflicting forecasts from which to choose. A serious attempt has been made to address these concerns. These forecasts are meant to supplement - not replace - the official NWS CPC seasonal and winter outlooks by providing more detail and adaptive meteorological interpretation of the impact of predicted climatic events on the Florida region. Generally, due to the nature of the forecast it will fall within the general boundaries of the official temperature and precipitation forecast. However, the forecast of severe weather and storminess in particular, fall outside the normal realm of seasonal forecasting and are controversial. Risk of use - Moderate to High

Goal 4 is met by providing customized educational information on Florida seasons, the physical relationships between ENSO and Florida weather, and the predictability of these relationships. This information is generally in a constant state of review and update and should be considered a work in progress. Research continues at a rapid pace around the globe on the impact of ENSO and other climatic forces and it is nearly impossible to keep up with the latest breaking research. The information contained here, although presented in one form or another at various American Meteorological Society and National Weather Association Conferences and Symposia and published in Preprint volumes of their proceedings, has not been subject to formal peer review and may be controversial and contrary to other research results. Risk of use - Low to Moderate

This page is intended to be updated around the 30th of each month after the preceding month’s data and updated CPC ENSO forecasts are available. There is no guaranty that this page will be updated in a timely manner due to higher priority duties or other circumstances beyond our control or that this page will continue to be able to be maintained.

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Florida region seasonal forecast development: Bart Hagemeyer.
Web layout and page production: Jacklyn Rhea Almeida.
Content Last Updated: 12/01/06 BCH