CFSR- NCEP Performance for weather data forecasting in the Pernambuco Semiarid, Brazil

The present study aims to evaluate meteorological data -with real time actualization- from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFRS) of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), comparing them with data from local stations in two mesoregions: Sertao de Pernambuco (SP) and Sertao do Sao Francisco (SFF), semi-arid region of Pernambuco, Brazil. Statistical performance indicators were used for the period since 1979 to 2014 and the variables: precipitation (P), average, minimum and maximum temperature (Tm, Tn, Tx respectively), relative humidity (HR), wind speed (Vv), solar radiation (RS) and potential evapotranspiration (ETo). Tn, Tm and Tx showed the best results for the determination coefficient (R2), Willmott concordance index (d), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency index (NSE) and percentage bias (PBIAS). ETo, P and HR obtained acceptable values for R2, d and NSE. CFSR data shows good performance with d values between 0.63 and 0.94.