Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pujol, Killian, Baggio, Roberta, Lambert, Dominique, Muzy, Jean-François, Filippi, Jean-Baptiste, Pantillon, Florian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.24216
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917972530954240
author Pujol, Killian
Baggio, Roberta
Lambert, Dominique
Muzy, Jean-François
Filippi, Jean-Baptiste
Pantillon, Florian
author_facet Pujol, Killian
Baggio, Roberta
Lambert, Dominique
Muzy, Jean-François
Filippi, Jean-Baptiste
Pantillon, Florian
contents Forecasting Heavy Precipitation Events (HPE) in the Mediterranean is crucial but challenging due to the complexity of the processes involved. In this context, Artificial Intelligence methods have recently proven to be competitive with state-of-the-art Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP). This work focuses on improving the prediction of the occurrence of HPE over periods from 1 h to 24 h based on Neural Network (NN) models. The proposed method uses both ground-station observations and data from Météo France's Arome and Arpege NWP models, on two regions with oceanic and Mediterranean climates for the period 2016-2018. The verification metric is the Peirce Skill Score. Results show that the NN model using only observations or NWP data performs better for shorter and longer rainfall accumulation period respectively. In contrast, a hybrid method combining both observations and NWP data offers the best performance and remains stable with the rainfall accumulation period. The hybrid method also improves the performance in predicting increasingly intense rainfall, from the 5% to the 0.1% rarest events. The choice of the loss function is found to be an important aspect of this work, where only balanced loss functions provide results insensitive to rare event frequency. Finally, the hybrid method is particularly well suited for the prediction of HPE in the Mediterranean climate, especially during the fall season, period during which most HPE occur.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_24216
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Improving prediction of heavy rainfall in the Mediterranean with Neural Networks using both observation and Numerical Weather Prediction data
Pujol, Killian
Baggio, Roberta
Lambert, Dominique
Muzy, Jean-François
Filippi, Jean-Baptiste
Pantillon, Florian
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Forecasting Heavy Precipitation Events (HPE) in the Mediterranean is crucial but challenging due to the complexity of the processes involved. In this context, Artificial Intelligence methods have recently proven to be competitive with state-of-the-art Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP). This work focuses on improving the prediction of the occurrence of HPE over periods from 1 h to 24 h based on Neural Network (NN) models. The proposed method uses both ground-station observations and data from Météo France's Arome and Arpege NWP models, on two regions with oceanic and Mediterranean climates for the period 2016-2018. The verification metric is the Peirce Skill Score. Results show that the NN model using only observations or NWP data performs better for shorter and longer rainfall accumulation period respectively. In contrast, a hybrid method combining both observations and NWP data offers the best performance and remains stable with the rainfall accumulation period. The hybrid method also improves the performance in predicting increasingly intense rainfall, from the 5% to the 0.1% rarest events. The choice of the loss function is found to be an important aspect of this work, where only balanced loss functions provide results insensitive to rare event frequency. Finally, the hybrid method is particularly well suited for the prediction of HPE in the Mediterranean climate, especially during the fall season, period during which most HPE occur.
title Improving prediction of heavy rainfall in the Mediterranean with Neural Networks using both observation and Numerical Weather Prediction data
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.24216