Welcome to the Lead Centre on Verification of Ensemble Prediction System Web site

Lead Centre

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) CBS-XIII (2005) recommended that the general responsibilities for a Lead Centre for Verification of EPS be added to the Manual on the WIPPS (WMO-No.485) and that the President designate RSMC Tokyo (Japan Meteorological Agency: JMA) as this Lead Centre.
Since January 2004, JMA has operated two Internet sites for the Lead Centre works; a Web site and a FTP site. The FTP site is used for EPS producing centres to upload their statistics of EPS verification and the Web site is used to publish them.

Guide of EPS verification

Standard verification measures of the global EPS in Manual on the WIPPS

The standard verification measures of the global EPS are defined in Manual on the WIPPS (2023 edition, WMO-No. 485; available here), appendix 2.2.35. Because of the publication of the latest edition of the Manual, WMO WIPPS Centres are highly recommended grasping the changes in those measures form the previous edition of the Manual.

Stations list for verification of precipitation against observations

Verification of precipitation is recommended to be performed against observations, which are based on the GCOS list of surface networks (GSN). The latest GSN stations list is available from the OSCAR/Surface website. You can get the list in JSON format by accessing the following URL:

https://oscar.wmo.int/surface/rest/api/search/station?programAffiliation=GSN

EPS producing centres shall have the right to omit certain observation sites if these fail a quality control.

Verification of precipitation may alternatively be against a proxy analysis. For more details, please refer to the Manual on the WIPPS.

Climatology for verification

The climatology data used in the verification measures are available from the ftp server of the WMO Lead Centre for Deterministic Forecast Verification. Information on how to obtain access to the data is available here.

Lead Centre guideline on the exchange and use of EPS verification results

In addition to the Manual, the Lead Centre has prepared the guideline on the exchange and use of EPS verification results (available here) for following information:

Definition of the standard verification statistics.
Data format and rules of three kinds of monthly verification reports produced by centres conducting global ensemble NWP: a deterministic table, CRPS table and reliability table.
For the centres, how to post the statistics on the ftp server of the Lead Centre.

Publication of verification results

The statistics in the menu "Monthly Exchange" are made by each EPS centre.
The information of uploading the "Monthly Exchange" is here.
The visualized images in the menu "Monthly Diagrams" and "Timesequence" are made by the Lead Centre.
Verification results of some centres are still unavailable.
The information of reported parameters in "Monthly Exchange" is here.

Contents	Deterministic verification	Probabilistic verification
Contents	RMS error, Spread	CRPS	BS, Reliability diagram, ...
Timesequence	All Centres BOM \| CMA \| CMC \| CPTEC \| DWD \| ECMWF \| JMA \| KMA \| MF \| NCEP \| NCMWRF \| RUMS \| UKMO	All Centres BOM \| CMA \| CMC \| CPTEC \| DWD \| ECMWF \| JMA \| KMA \| MF \| NCEP \| NCMRWF \| RUMS \| UKMO	All Centres BOM \| CMA \| CMC \| CPTEC \| DWD \| ECMWF \| JMA \| KMA \| MF \| NCEP \| NCMRWF \| RUMS \| UKMO
Monthly Diagrams	BOM \| CMA \| CMC \| CPTEC \| DWD \| ECMWF \| JMA \| KMA \| MF \| NCEP \| NCMRWF \| RUMS \| UKMO	BOM \| CMA \| CMC \| CPTEC \| DWD \| ECMWF \| JMA \| KMA \| MF \| NCEP \| NCMRWF \| RUMS \| UKMO	BOM \| CMA \| CMC \| CPTEC \| DWD \| ECMWF \| JMA \| KMA \| MF \| NCEP \| NCMRWF \| RUMS \| UKMO
Monthly Exchange	Deterministic tables by each centre \| Reported status	CRPS tables by each centre \| Reported status	Reliability tables by each centre \| Reported status
Note	BOM \| CMA \| CMC \| CPTEC \| DWD \| ECMWF \| JMA(Climatological normals until Dec. 2016, Change log) \| KMA \| MF \| NCEP \| NCMRWF \| RUMS (Precipitation data processing) \| UKMO

Contacts

For further information, please contact JMA at the email address below.
E-mail:

Legal notice

Copyright

a) Monthly verification reports on this website remain the property of the contributing centre.

b) Except a), information made available on this website may be used on condition that the user complies with Japan Meteorological Agency Website Terms of Use.