Seasonal rainfall predictions over the southeast United States using the Florida State University nested regional spectral model

Seasonal rainfall predictions over the southeast United States using the recently developed Florida State University (FSU) nested regional spectral model are presented. The regional model is nested within the FSU coupled model, which includes a version of the Max Plank Institute Hamburg Ocean Primitive Equation model. The southeast U.S. winter has a rather strong climatic signal due to teleconnections with tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures and thus provides a good test case scenario for a modeling study. Simulations were done for 12 boreal winter seasons, from 1986 to 1997. Both the regional and global models captured the basic large‐scale patterns of precipitation reasonably well when compared to observed station data. The regional model was able to predict the anomaly pattern somewhat better than the global model. The regional model was particularly more skillful at predicting the frequency of significant rainfall events, in part because of the ability to produce heavier rainfall events.