Analog years

[AnnularCane]

What exactly are analog years? What does it mean?

[wxman57]

What exactly are analog years? What does it mean?

An analog year is a year when the weather patterns and characteristics for the period of interest were similar to the current weather patterns. Let's say we're talking about a seasonal hurricane forecast and parameters like the predicted intensity of El Nino/La Nina and Atlantic SSTs are taken into consideration. The forecaster would look back in history to find those years with a similar El Nino/La Nina pattern and similar Atlantic SST conditions. Such years would be "analog years".

By studying past years with similar patterns forecasters may be able to make long-range predictions for the current year.

[Aslkahuna]

There is a risk in using analogs and that is that the atmosphere may not respond in the same manner to the similar pattern as it did in the past. Minor differences between the two can result in big departures.

Steve