Assessment of an ensemble seasonal streamflow forecasting system for Australia

Bennett, James C.; Wang, Quan J.; Robertson, David E.; Schepen, Andrew; Li, Ming; Michael, Kelvin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-6007-2017

Articles | Volume 21, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-6007-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Sub-seasonal to seasonal hydrological forecasting

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-6007-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 12

Research article

|

30 Nov 2017

Research article |

| 30 Nov 2017

Assessment of an ensemble seasonal streamflow forecasting system for Australia

James C. Bennett, Quan J. Wang, David E. Robertson, Andrew Schepen, Ming Li, and Kelvin Michael

Data sets

Rainfall, Australian Water Availability Project Australian Government, Bureau of Meteorology http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/

Potential evaporation CSIRO http://www.csiro.au/awap/

Streamflow gauge Australian Government, Bureau of Meteorology http://www.bom.gov.au/waterdata/

Short summary

We assess a new streamflow forecasting system in Australia. The system is designed to meet the need of water agencies for 12-month forecasts. The forecasts perform well in a wide range of rivers. Forecasts for shorter periods (up to 6 months) are generally informative. Forecasts sometimes did not perform well in a few very dry rivers. We test several techniques for improving streamflow forecasts in drylands, with mixed success.