A flexible format for exchange of domain-averaged verification scores exchange has been defined :and described here. For format of station-based scores please look at the respective documents.

(Rev. 10, 16 July 2012)

Document history:

• Rev 10, 16 July 2012: SEEPS added to the score list;
• Rev 9, 12 January 2012: list of domains extended;
• Rev 8, 5 January 2012: correction of the example;
• Rev 7, 12 December 2011: list of domain labels;
• Rev 6, 7 November 2011: units of msl pressure scores changed to hPa; a precision of the record format;
• Rev 5, 1 November 2011: example made compliant to the format definition;
• Rev 4, 1 September 2011: definition of standard deviation;
• Rev 3, 25 August 2011: introduction of units definition paragraph; formatting.
  
  

Format definition

Every score value is described by the full set of key attributes, like its parameter, domain, date, step etc. The keys describing one score value are organised into a record. Each record corresponds to one score value. A record is a collection of pairs key=value separated by commas. A record spans one line, records are separated by newline characters (CR). The value of a key missing in the current record is inherited from the key of the previous record, except for the value parameter v which has to be present in each record.

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• centre : the 4-letter WMO identifier of the originating centre (ammc, cwao, ecmf, edzw, egrr, kwbc, lfpw, rjtd, rksl, rums etc);
• model : free model identifier assigned by the centre (to distinguish between potentially different models provided by the centre);
• par : denotes the parameter and level of the verified field and can have the following forms:
  • for upper-air fields (eg. z500hPa, t850hPa, w250hPa) it has the form PL <P><L> where
    • P <P> is the parameter (z for geopotential height, t for temperature, w for wind, r for relative humidity)
    • L <L> is the pressure of the isobaric level in hPa and the string hPa
  • for the mean-sea-level pressure it is mslp;
• sc : is the score abbreviation:
  • rmse for root-mean-square error
  • me for mean error (bias)
  • mae for mean absolute error
  • s1 ("S ONE") for S1 skill score
  • ccaf for forecast anomaly correlation
  • cctf for forecast tendency correlation
  • rmsaf for root-mean-square of forecast anomaly
  • rmsav for root-mean-square of verifying analysis anomaly
  • seeps for SEEPS
  • sd for standard deviation of field
• dom : is the domain name, one of the following: nhem shem tropics eurnafr namer asia austnz npol spol;
• ref : indicated whether the scores have been computed against the analysis (ref=an) or observations (ref=ob);
• refs : reference subtype (reserved, currently not in use);
• d : day of the forecast validity in the form YYYYMMDD or month of the mean in the form YYYYMM;
• t : time of the forecast validity in hours of UTC;
• s : forecast step in hours;
• n : number of observations use used to compute the given score (if applicable); for monthly means this should be the average number of observation per observation time;
• v : score value; it can be of any usual numeric format (3, 3., 3.0, 0.3E+1,...) but without any leading zeroes (003); the number of significant digits must be sufficient to ensure description of natural score variability between forecast steps, seasons or different centres; if the value is not available the record either should not be printed at all or the value should be set to NIL (v=nil); every record must contain the key v (value of key v is not inheritable from previous record).

Order of key=value pairs is not significant; new keys can be added in future. Case of characters is insignificant, but it should be kept lower-case. Everything Any text following the hash sign # till until the end of the line is ignored.

Units of values

Values should be of units following the definitions of scores in the WMO-CBS document on the updated standard verification system.

Example

# a sample bulletin with daily values, compressed by removing
# redundant (repeated) key=value pairs
centre=ecmf,par=z500hpa,sc=rmse,dom=nhem,ref=an,d=20110101,t=0,s=24,v=9.8
s=48,v=12.0
t=12,s=24,v=9.9
s=48,v=12.3
ref=ob,t=0,s=24,n=204,v=13.8
s=48,v=19.0
t=12,s=24,v=13.6
s=48,v=20.03

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