Table 1 shows the value of the standard deviation in oC at selected stations. Field significance reflects the probability of randomly obtaining an overall map skill equal to or higher than that which actually occurred. It is evaluated using a Monte Carlo procedure in which the forecasts versus observation correspondences are shuffled randomly 1000 times. The skill of the temperature forecast is highest in winter followed by spring and early summer even at the 6-month lead time. Local skill is highest from the eastern Prairies to southern Quebec.
Local skills are low throughout most of Canada except southern Alberta and the upper Great Lakes.
British Columbia, Alberta, most of Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are expected to have above normal precipitation. Both atmospheric and oceanic indices have been showing a moderate strength of the cold phase of ENSO since June 1998 in the tropical Pacific. Over the last few months however, conditions have for the most part returned to near-normal. The consensus among the dynamic and statistical models is a return to normal conditions in the tropical Pacific during the boreal winter of 2000-01. Seasonal forecast of Canadian surface temperature by canonical correlation analysis.