Assessment of seasonal soil moisture forecasts over the Central Mediterranean

Silvestri, Lorenzo; Saraceni, Miriam; Brunone, Bruno; Meniconi, Silvia; Passadore, Giulia; Bongioannini Cerlini, Paolina

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-925-2025

Articles | Volume 29, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-925-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-925-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 29, issue 4

Research article

|

23 Feb 2025

Research article |

| 23 Feb 2025

Assessment of seasonal soil moisture forecasts over the Central Mediterranean

Lorenzo Silvestri, Miriam Saraceni, Bruno Brunone, Silvia Meniconi, Giulia Passadore, and Paolina Bongioannini Cerlini

Data sets

ERA5-Land hourly data from 1950 to present J. Muñoz Sabater https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.e2161bac

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Seasonal forecast daily and subdaily data on single levels Copernicus Climate Change Service, Climate Data Store https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.181d637e

Model code and software

xarray-contrib/xskillscore: Metrics for verifying forecasts R. Bell et al. https://xskillscore.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

Short summary

This work demonstrates that seasonal forecasts of soil moisture are a valuable resource for groundwater management in the areas of the Central Mediterranean where longer memory timescales are found. In particular, they show significant correlation coefficients and forecast skill for the deepest soil moisture at 289 cm depth. Wet and dry events can be predicted 6 months in advance, and, in general, dry events are better captured than wet events.