Verification of Gridded Wind Forecasts in Complex Alpine Terrain: A New Wind Verification Methodology Based on the Neighborhood Approach

A novel wind verification methodology is presented and analyzed for six surface wind cases in the greater Alpine region as well as an idealized setup. The methodology is based on the idea of the fractions skill score, a neighborhood-based spatial verification metric frequently used for verifying precipitation. The new score avoids the problems of traditional nonspatial verification metrics (the double penalty'' problem and the failure to distinguish between a near miss'' and much poorer forecasts) and can distinguish forecasts even when the spatial displacement of wind patterns is large. Moreover, the time-averaged score value in combination with a statistical significance test enables different wind forecasts to be ranked by their performance.