sCast is a season ahead outlook for the summer season beginning in February and the winter season beginning in August. The outlook is produced from an AER climate model using a unique initialization scheme.
Our input is a combination of El Niño and temperature trends in addition to snow cover from remote parts of the world and the North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation patterns. This provides a more complete indication of the overall forcing and allows more accurate seasonal forecasting than other models that incorporate only ocean-based factors in predicting seasonal climate, including El Niño. The six to three-month outlook includes temperature and precipitation forecasts, along with specific energy-demand products in terms of heating and cooling-degree-days.