Evaluation of climatic forecasts of rainfall for the Tlaxcala State (México): 1998-2002

Abstract

During the second semester of 1997 the project “Utilización de pronósticos climáticos para actividades agrícolas en Tlaxcala” was instrumented with the purpose of aiding decision making in agricultural activities in the estate of Tlaxcala, México. The main objective of the project was to characterize extreme values of precipitation associated with El Niño/ La Niña events, to produce useful forecasts for decision-making. This was achieved through close contacts with the farmers whose specific needs were taken into account to the extent possible. In a sense such forecasts became “forecasts watched over by producers”. The method of ensemble of analogs was applied to historical data. The evaluation of annual and monthly forecasts is presented here. The results show that knowledge about the regional climate has been gained as it is reflected by the skill of the method to forecast. The forecast for the region, for the year 2003 is analyzed in terms of the precipitation anomalies.