A model for assessment of weather forecasts.

Abstract

A general paradigm for assessment of ability to discriminate between two alternatives is described in the context of weather forecast verification. The paradigm is based on the relative operating characteristic (ROC), a graph of the variation of hit rate with false alarm rate as decision criterion changes. A model for the ROC based on the mathematical theory of signal detection is shown to provide a good fit to verification data from weather forecasts for a wide variety of predictands. -from Author