Improving Hurricane Intensity Forecasts

Over the last decades, researchers have focused on improving tropical cyclone forecasts. Accurate TC predictions are very important in order to protect life and property. Scientists examine two important pieces regarding TC prediction: where the storm is going and how strong it will be in the future. These are referred as track and intensity forecasts. TC track forecast has improved tremendously over the last several decades. However, hurricane intensity forecasts continue to be a great challenge in operational and research communities. Previous studies have found that the lack of progress in intensity forecasts is partly due to the lag in the ability to specify the initial vortex in the numerical weather prediction model, in addition to the lag in representing the observed inner-core storm intensity, structure and internal dynamics. Researches have introduced various data assimilation techniques to address the problem of determining the initial vortex. However, in order to better represent these features, there must be sufficient observations in the inner-core region along with a data assimilation method that can effectively use the data to accurately estimate the initial vortex.