Skill in forecasting

Forecasting

Forecasting is the process of making statements about events whose actual outcomes have not yet been observed. A commonplace example might be estimation for some variable of interest at some specified future date. Prediction is a similar, but more general term...

 (or skill score, forecast skill, prediction skill) is a scaled representation of forecast error

Forecast error

In statistics, a forecast error is the difference between the actual or real and the predicted or forecast value of a time series or any other phenomenon of interest....

 that relates the forecast accuracy of a particular forecast model to some reference model.

Mean squared error Mean squared error In statistics, the mean squared error of an estimator is one of many ways to quantify the difference between values implied by a kernel density estimator and the true values of the quantity being estimated. MSE is a risk function, corresponding to the expected value of the squared error loss or...  (MSE)
Forecast skill (SS)

A perfect forecast results in a forecast skill of 1.0, a forecast with similar skill to the reference forecast would have a skill of 0.0, and a forecast which is less skillful than the reference forecast would have negative skill values. Reference class forecasting

Reference class forecasting

Reference class forecasting is the method of predicting the future, through looking at similar past situations and their outcomes.Reference class forcasting predicts the outcome of a planned action based on actual outcomes in a reference class of similar actions to that being forecast. The theories...

was developed to increase forecast skill.