Forecast Rodeo II Leaderboard

Rodeo 2: Sub-seasonal climate forecasting. Closing the gap on sub-seasonal climate forecasting. Over eight hundred thousand dollars in prizes! Stemming from the success of Rodeo I, Reclamation is partnering again with NOAA/National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) on this Rodeo II competition. Rodeo II seeks to create algorithms to enhance sub-seasonal forecasting, reduce risks to our water systems, and help water managers efficiently manage hydrological regimes.

Improved sub-seasonal forecasts for weather and climate conditions (lead times ranging from 15-42 days and beyond) would allow water managers to better prepare for shifts in hydrologic regimes, such as the onset of drought or occurrence of wet weather extremes.

Sub-seasonal forecasting is challenging in that it encompasses the time frame where initial state information (e.g., coupled land-atmosphere processes) becomes less important and slowly varying long-term states (e.g., sea-surface temperatures, soil moisture, snow pack) become more important to prediction skill. Additionally, this information is needed 15 days to 45 days ahead of time, or even longer.

The year-long, real-time portion of Rodeo II kicked off on September 30, 2019, with the first forecasts due October 13, 2019. The competition is structured as 26 "forecast sprints" every two weeks over the course of the year. Prize categories include awards for individual sprint forecasts, seasonal (quarterly), and annual (overall) performance.