WMO-recommended 30-yr normals are no longer generally useful for the design, planning,
and decision-making purposes for which they were intended. They not only have little …

BY ANTHONY ARGUEZ AND RUSSELL S. VOSE period, but one of their primary utilities is
to provide stakeholders and decision makers with a metric of future climate conditions that …

A simple approach to long-range forecasting of monthly or seasonal quantities is as the
average of observations over some number of the most recent years. Finding this “optimal …

This study is intended to determine the spatially varying optimal time periods for calculating
seasonal climate normals over the entire United States based on temperature data at 344 …

Climate indices help to describe the past, present, and the future climate. They are usually
closer related to possible impacts and are therefore more illustrative to users than simple …

Eleven alternatives to the annually updated 30-yr average for specifying climate “normals”
are considered for the purpose of projecting nonstationarity in the mean US temperature …

Climatological normals are widely used baselines for the description and the
characterization of a given meteorological situation. The World Meteorological Organization …

The predictive abilities of NOAA normals and running means of 2–30 years length are tested
statistically. Heating degree-day (HDD) data from six northern United States sites are tested …

Climatologists (AASC) 1 work daily at the interface be tween the meteorological/
climatological profession and the many climate-sensitive aspects of our society. As a result …

Climatic disasters are common in many tropical regions, and rainfall anomalies in particular
have a severe human impact. Accordingly, both the World Climate Programme and the US …