Abstract The characterization of hydrometeorological extreme events is often hindered by limited availability of observations of past meteorological conditions. Seasonal forecasts, commonly used to represent the temporal evolution of predictable components of the Earth system over periods of a few weeks or months, have recently been applied to obtain information about extreme events and their dynamical mechanisms. These forecasts typically have higher spatial resolution than climate projections and can provide a better description of the complex and nonlinear interactions among Earth system components. This study presents an application of seasonal hindcasts for studying meteorological drought across Europe during late spring–summer, with a focus on precipitation deficits over southern Germany. Seasonal hindcasts from five contributors to the Copernicus Climate Change Service are assessed for realism and robustness through various steps, including bias correction, statistical characterization, stability check of the outputs, and a multi‐model intercomparison of the atmospheric patterns associated with the most intense events. Chance estimates for the period 1993–2016 obtained using seasonal ensembles reveal that harmful and unprecedented meteorological droughts, such as those later observed in 2018 and 2022, could have been expected. The results presented can inform and guide future downstream applications of seasonal forecasts for drought risk assessment, providing hydrologists and engineers a basis to identify and select validated simulations.
Buccellato et al. (Mon,) studied this question.