Forecast validation: October to December 2009
A region of suppressed convection was forecast for the southwest Pacific encompassing Niue, the Northern Cook Islands, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea. Near to below average rainfall was expected for all of those islands, except below average rainfall was forecast for Papua New Guinea. Near normal rainfall was forecast for the Austral Islands and Pitcairn Island. Enhanced convection was projected along the Equator extending from Western to Eastern Kiribati, and also near the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. These regions were expected to receive near or above normal rainfall, with Western Kiribati forecast to receive above normal rainfall. No clear precipitation guidance was offered for Vanuatu, Fiji, Tuamotu Archipelago, Samoa, Tokelau, the Southern Cook Islands, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, and the Society Islands.
The October–December 2009 forecast validation was calculated for 10 island groups (ten Pacific Islands were forecast as climatology and were unscorable). The global island group ‘hit’ rate was 72%, 8% higher than average for October forecasts, and 11% higher than the average for all months combined. Rainfall was underprojected for Papua New Guinea.