On the Prospects for Improved Tropical Cyclone Track Forecasts
Advanced Search
Select up to three search categories and corresponding keywords using the fields to the right. Refer to the Help section for more detailed instructions.

Search our Collections & Repository

For very narrow results

When looking for a specific result

Best used for discovery & interchangable words

Recommended to be used in conjunction with other fields

Dates

to

Document Data
Library
People
Clear All
Clear All

For additional assistance using the Custom Query please check out our Help Page

i

On the Prospects for Improved Tropical Cyclone Track Forecasts

Filetype[PDF-2.28 MB]


Details You May Also Like

Details:

  • Journal Title:
    Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
  • Description:
    The success story of numerical weather prediction is often illustrated with the dramatic decrease of errors in tropical cyclone track forecasts over the past decades. In a recent essay, Landsea and Cangialosi, however, note a diminishing trend in the reduction of perceived positional error (PPE; difference between forecast and observed positions) in National Hurricane Center tropical cyclone (TC) forecasts as they contemplate whether “the approaching limit of predictability for tropical cyclone track prediction is near or has already been reached.” In this study we consider a different interpretation of the PPE data. First, we note that PPE is different from true positional error (TPE; difference between forecast and true positions) as it is influenced by the error in the observed position of TCs. PPE is still customarily used as a proxy for TPE since the latter is not directly measurable. As an alternative, TPE is estimated here with an inverse method, using PPE measurements and a theoretically based assumption about the exponential growth of TPE as a function of lead time. Eighty-nine percent variance in the behavior of 36–120-h lead-time 2001–17 seasonally averaged PPE measurements is explained with an error model using just four parameters. Assuming that the level of investments, and the pace of improvements to the observing, modeling, and data assimilation systems continue unabated, the four-parameter error model indicates that the time limit of predictability at the 181 nautical mile error level (n mi; 1 n mi = 1.85 km), reached at day 5 in 2017, may be extended beyond 6 and 8 days in 10 and 30 years’ time, respectively.
  • Keywords:
  • Source:
    Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 101(12)
  • DOI:
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Rights Information:
    Other
  • Compliance:
    Submitted
  • Main Document Checksum:
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:

Supporting Files

  • No Additional Files
More +

You May Also Like

Checkout today's featured content at repository.library.noaa.gov

Version 3.27.1