Seasonal prediction of UK mean and extreme winds

<p>For several years the Met Office has produced a seasonal outlook for the UK every month, which is issued to the UK Government and contingency planners.&#160; The outlook gives predictions of the probability of having average, low, or high seasonal mean UK temperature and precipitation for the coming three-months.&#160; In recent years, there has been increasing demand from sectors such as energy and insurance to include similar probabilistic predictions of UK wind speed: both for the seasonal mean and for measures of extreme winds such as storm numbers.&#160; In this presentation we show the skill of the Met Office&#8217;s GloSea system in predicting seasonal (three-month average) UK mean wind and a measure of UK storminess throughout the year, and discuss the drivers of predictability.&#160; Skill in predicting the UK mean wind speed and storminess peaks in winter (December&#8211;February), owing to predictability of the North Atlantic oscillation.&#160; In summer (June&#8211;August), there is evidence that a significant proportion of variability in UK winds is driven by a Rossby wave train which the model has little skill in predicting. Nevertheless there are signs that the wave is potentially predictable and skill may be improved by reducing model errors.</p>