The use of Holt–Winters’ method for forecasting rainfall of Quetta region
Paper Details
The use of Holt–Winters’ method for forecasting rainfall of Quetta region
Abstract
This paper aims to model and forecast monthly average rainfall of Quetta region. Due to arid nature of this zone, groundwater is one of the major resources for domestic, agriculture, commercial and industrial utilization. Sustainability of groundwater table cannot be maintained because of extreme weather condition. Quetta has faced severe drought situation in the past. It is important to observe the imbalance in precipitation and temperature and forecasting rainfall in Quetta region is of great importance. This study uses multiple regression method to explore the relationship between rainfall and temperature (maximum and minimum). Furthermore, Holt-Winters methods (multiplicative and additive) are employed to forecast the precipitation. Average monthly rainfall from January, 1980 to December, 2016 is used for model building and data from January, 2017 to December, 2017 is used to validate the developed model. Negative relationship is observed between mean maximum temperature and precipitation whereas positive relationship is found between rainfall and minimum temperature. Root mean squares error and Mean absolute error are used as validation measures. Empirical analysis displays that Holt-Winters additive method is appropriate for future forecasting. Moreover, January, 2018 to December, 2020 is forecasted. A decline pattern is observed in future rain fall.
Archibald BC. 1990. Parameter space of the Holt-Winters’ model. International Journal of Forecasting 6(2), 199-209.
Bajoi AH. 2004. Report on reorganization of Agriculture Research and Extension Balochistan University of Information Technology Engineering and Management Sciences Quetta.
Balyani Y, Doost H. 2014. Fundamentals of spatial data processing using spatial analysis methods.
Booranawong T, Booranawong A. 2017. Simple and double exponential smoothing methods with designed input data for forecasting a seasonal time series: in an application for lime prices in Thailand. Suranaree Journal of Science & Technology 24(3).
Bowerman BL, O’Connell RT, Koehler AB. 2005. Forecasting, time series, and regression: an applied approach. Thomson Brooks/Cole.
Box GE, Jenkins GM, Reinsel GC, Ljung GM. 2015. Time series analysis: forecasting and control. John Wiley & Sons.
Brown RG. 1959. Statistical forecasting for inventory control. McGraw/Hill.
Fatima S, Khan MS. 2018. Forecasting Rainfall in Potohar Region of Pakistan in the Perspective of Drought. Punjab University Journal of Mathematics 50(4), 119-132.
Gundalia MJ, Dholakia MB. 2012. Prediction of maximum/minimum temperatures using Holt Winters Method with Excel Spread Sheet for Junagadh Region. International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology 1(6), 1-8.
Holt CC. 1957. Forecasting trends and seasonal by exponentially weighted moving averages. ONR Memorandum 52.
Hussain A, Zulqarnain M, Hussain J. 2010. Catastrophes in the South Punjab Due to Climate Change and the Role of PIDEANS. Center for Environmental Economics and Climate Change (CEECC), Islamabad.
Kamruzzaman M, Beecham S, Metcalfe AV. 2011. Non‐stationarity in rainfall and temperature in the Murray Darling Basin. Hydrological Processes 25(10), 1659-1675.
Lobell DB, Hammer GL, McLean G, Messina C, Roberts MJ, Schlenker W. 2013. The critical role of extreme heat for maize production in the United States. Nature Climate Change 3(5), 497.
Murat M, Malinowska I, Gos M, Krzyszczak J. 2018. Forecasting daily meteorological time series using ARIMA and regression models. International agrophysics 32(2), 253-264.
Ord JK, Koehler AB, Snyder RD. 1997. Estimation and prediction for a class of dynamic nonlinear statistical models. Journal of the American Statistical Association 92(440), 1621-1629.
Pongdatu GAN, Putra YH. 2018. Seasonal Time Series Forecasting using SARIMA and Holt Winter’s Exponential Smoothing. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 407(1).
Rasul G, Mahmood A, Sadiq A, Khan SI. 2012. Vulnerability of the Indus delta to climate change in Pakistan. Pakistan journal of meteorology 8(16).
Salma S, Shah MA, Rehman S. 2012. Rainfall trends in different climate zones of Pakistan. Pakistan Journal of Meteorology 9(17).
Wheelwright S, Makridakis S, Hyndman RJ. 1998. Forecasting: methods and applications. John Wiley & Sons.
Winters PR. 1960. Forecasting sales by exponentially weighted moving averages. Management science 6(3), 324-342.
Samreen Fatima, Rafia Shafi, Sadia Aslam, 2019. The use of Holt–Winters’ method for forecasting rainfall of Quetta region. Int. J. Biosci., 15(2), 539-546.
Copyright © 2019 by the Authors. This article is an open access article and distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license.