The regional Climate-Weather Research and Forecasting model (CWRF) is used to downscale the National Climate Center’s operational short-term climate prediction based on the Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model (BCC_CSM1.1m). The prediction skill is assessed for daily precipitation and surface air temperature (2 m) from March to August during 1991—2010. As compared to BCC_CSM1.1m, CWRF predicts more realistic seasonal mean precipitation and temperature spatial distributions and resolves more detailed features over mountainous regions with large terrain variations. It also predicts interannual variations in precipitation East and Central China more accurately. Overall, CWRF outperforms BCC_CSM1.1m in predicting precipitation of different intensities, especially extreme events. Benefiting from higher spatial resolution and advanced physical process simulation at lower levels, CWRF downscaling can improve the seasonal prediction of summer precipitation in China.