The version of SHIPS with an inland decay component is known as Decay SHIPS (DSHIPS). A similar model was developed for the northwest Pacific Ocean and Southern Hemisphere known as the Statistical Intensity Prediction System (STIPS), which accounts for land interactions through the input environmental conditions from the Navy Operational Global Prediction System (NOGAPS) model. In regards to intensity forecasting, the Statistical Hurricane Intensity Prediction Scheme (SHIPS) utilizes relationships between environmental conditions from the Global Forecast System (GFS) such as vertical wind shear and sea surface temperatures, climatology, and persistence (storm behavior) via multiple regression techniques to come up with an intensity forecast for systems in the northern Atlantic and northeastern Pacific oceans. In 1994, a version of SHIFOR was created for the northwest Pacific Ocean for typhoon forecasting, known as the Statistical Typhoon Intensity Forecast (STIFOR), which used the 1971–1990 data for that region to develop intensity forecasts out to 72 hours into the future. Within the field of tropical cyclone track forecasting, despite the ever-improving dynamical model guidance which occurred with increased computational power, it was not until the decade of the 1980s when numerical weather prediction showed skill, and until the 1990s when it consistently outperformed statistical or simple dynamical models.
#HURRICANE TRACK EUROPEAN MODEL SERIES#
Ī series of statistical-dynamical models, which used regression equations based upon CLIPER output and the latest output from primitive equation models run at the National Meteorological Center, then National Centers for Environmental Prediction, were developed between the 1970s and 1990s and were named NHC73, NHC83, NHC90, NHC91, and NHC98.
It uses climatology and persistence to predict future intensity, including the current Julian day, current cyclone intensity, the cyclone's intensity 12 hours ago, the storm's initial latitude and longitude, as well as its zonal (east-west) and meridional (north-south) components of motion. The Statistical Hurricane Intensity Forecast (SHIFOR) has been used since 1979 for tropical cyclone intensity forecasting. In the era of skillful dynamical forecasts, CLIPER is now being used as the baseline to show model and forecaster skill. Since 1972, the Climatology and Persistence (CLIPER) statistical model has been used to help generate tropical cyclone track forecasts. The method did well with storms south of the 25th parallel which had not yet turned northward, but poorly with systems near or after recurvature. It then shifted their tracks through the storm's current path, and used location, direction and speed of motion, and the date to find suitable analogs. It used the newly developed North Atlantic tropical cyclone database to find storms with similar tracks. The first statistical guidance used by the National Hurricane Center was the Hurricane Analog Technique (HURRAN), which was available in 1969. Techniques used at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center indicate that superensemble forecasts are a very powerful tool for track forecasting. Both consensus and superensemble forecasts can use the guidance of global and regional models runs to improve the performance more than any of their respective components. The use of consensus, ensemble, and superensemble forecasts lowers errors more than any individual forecast model. Early models use data from previous model runs while late models produce output after the official hurricane forecast has been sent. Statistical-dynamical models were used from the 1970s into the 1990s. Track models did not show forecast skill when compared to statistical models until the 1980s. Dynamical models were not developed until the 1970s and the 1980s, with earlier efforts focused on the storm surge problem. Four primary types of forecasts exist for tropical cyclones: track, intensity, storm surge, and rainfall. Statistical-dynamical models use aspects of both types of forecasting. Statistical models forecast the evolution of a tropical cyclone in a simpler manner, by extrapolating from historical datasets, and thus can be run quickly on platforms such as personal computers.
#HURRICANE TRACK EUROPEAN MODEL SOFTWARE#
Dynamical models utilize powerful supercomputers with sophisticated mathematical modeling software and meteorological data to calculate future weather conditions. There are three types of models: statistical, dynamical, or combined statistical-dynamic.
The NHC official forecast is light blue, while the storm's actual track is the white line over Florida.Ī tropical cyclone forecast model is a computer program that uses meteorological data to forecast aspects of the future state of tropical cyclones. Significant track errors still occur on occasion, as seen in this Ernesto (2006) early forecast.