1. Climate prediction centres around the world generate seasonal forecasts, employing a variety of methods including dynamical models, statistical methods, expert judgment and combinations of them. Predictions from different centres do not always agree and large discrepancies can occur at times. The Observatory adopts an ensemble approach to formulate its seasonal forecast for Hong Kong, taking into consideration available products from major climate prediction centres and the Global-Regional Climate Model (G-RCM) operated in house. Thus, the resulting forecast issued by the Observatory may be different from the forecast given by G-RCM.

2. The Observatory gratefully acknowledges the Tokyo Climate Center of the Japan Meteorological Agency and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA for providing dynamical prediction model forecast and hindcast data to support the formulation of seasonal forecast for Hong Kong.

3. Forecast for summer 2012 (June to August 2012) will be available around 10th June 2012.