ADVANCES IN PRECIPITATION ESTIMATION, PREDICTION AND IMPACT STUDIES

Precipitation continues to be one of the hardest variables to measure and predict at weather to climate scales. Research on space-time variability and prediction of precipitation lies at the intersection of atmospheric and hydrologic sciences and has important implications for society and the environment. The 12th International Precipitation Conference (IPC12), organized on June 19-21, 2019 in Irvine, California, followed on the footsteps of the previous successful IPC conferences and brought together the international community from more than 60 countries to discuss recent progress on precipitation research and contemplate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. IPC12 focused on three main themes: (1) global precipitation estimation from multiple sensors; (2) water cycle dynamics and predictive modeling at local to regional to global scales; and (3) hydrologic impacts of precipitation extremes and anticipated change. Given the challenges of climate variability and change, especially changes in precipitation extremes and seasonality including snowfall timing, efforts concentrated on recent advances in improved physical and statistical methodologies for sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) predictions using models and observations, global estimation of precipitation at high spatial and temporal resolution from multiple sensors, and assessment of uncertainty propagation to studies of floods, droughts and ecological changes. Pre-conference workshops and tutorials were offered on topics ranging from remote sensing estimation, to extreme value analysis to the National Water Model. One day of the IPC12 was dedicated to the “Soroosh Sorooshian Hydrometeorology Symposium” in honor of his extensive contributions to precipitation research over the past four decades and his unwavering commitment to producing improved remote sensing precipitation products for hydrologic applications worldwide. This is a brief report that integrates the conference outcomes and paves the path for future IPCs on the ever-important topic of understanding and quantifying precipitation variability and advancing measurement and prediction at a range of space and time scales relevant for decision support.