NHC Tropical Cyclone Forecast Verification

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Forecast verification procedures
3. Annual NHC verification reports
4. Official five-year mean errors and distributions
5. Official error trends
6. Model error trends
7. NHC official forecast error database
8. Performance measures and goals
9. References

1. Introduction

NHC receives frequent inquiries on the accuracy and skill of its forecasts and of the computer models available to it. To help answer these questions, these verification web pages were established in March 2005. The development of this resource will be completed in stages; ultimately all available records dating back to the earliest NHC forecasts in 1954 will be included. A digital database of NHC official track forecast errors has been constructed for the period 1970 to the present, and it is this period that is presented initially here. A digital database of intensity errors has been constructed dating back to 1990. These pages will be updated as extensions to the database are completed. Questions on NHC forecast verifications may be directed to James.Franklin@noaa.gov.

Note: A number of the documents included here are in PDF format. You may need to install the free Adobe Acrobat (pdf) to view and print these documents.

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