Skilful Real‐Time Seasonal Forecasts of the Dry Northern European Summer 2018

The Northern European summer of 2018 was the driest for 35 years with resulting impacts on health, agriculture, energy, and water resources. Here we show that this rainfall anomaly was well predicted by a real‐time seasonal forecast. An anticyclonic circulation anomaly was correctly forecast over the North Sea and Scandinavia in 2018 and also in the 1976 record dry summer. In both these exceptionally dry summers, a similar tripole anomaly...