“…Thus the importance of using benchmarks that are known and understood is essential in assessing how 'good' forecasts are (Seibert, 2001;Garrick et al, 1978;Martinec and Rango, 1989;Murphy and Winkler, 1987;Schaefli and Gupta, 2007). There is a wealth of literature on comparing models or forecasts, developing techniques to evaluate skill and on the use of benchmarks in hydro-meteorological forecasting Dawson et al, 2007;Ewen, 2011;Gordon et al, 2000;Nicolle et al, 2013;Pappenberger and Beven, 2004;Pappenberger et al, 2011a;Rodwell et al, 2010;Rykiel, 1996). Although there is surprisingly little consensus on which benchmarks are most suited for which application, benchmark suitability has been found to depend on the model structure used in the forecasting system, the season, catchment characteristics, river regime and flow conditions.…”