Seasonal Prediction of North Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy and Major Hurricane Activity

• Published in: Weather and Forecasting
• Main Authors: Davis, Kyle, Zeng, Xubin
• Other Authors: Univ Arizona, Dept Hydrol & Atmospher Sci
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC 2019
• Subjects: Hurricanes/typhoons; Seasonal forecasting; Statistical forecasting; Agnese; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/632896; https://doi.org/10.1175/WAF-D-18-0125.1

Building upon our previous seasonal hurricane prediction model, here we develop two statistical models to predict the number of major hurricanes (MHs) and accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) in the North Atlantic basin using monthly data from March to May for an early June forecast. The input data include zonal pseudo-wind stress to the 3/2 power, sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic, and, depending on the magnitude of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation index, the multivariate ENSO index. From 1968 to 2017, these models have a mean absolute error of 0.96 storms for MHs and 30 units for ACE. When tested over an independent period from 1958 to 1967, the models show a 22% improvement for MHs and 16% for ACE over a no-skill metric based on a 5-yr running average. Both the MH and ACE results show consistent improvements over those produced by three other centers using statistical-dynamical hybrid models and a 5-yr running average prediction over the period 2000-17 for MHs (2003-17 for ACE) in a simulated real-time prediction. These improvements vary from 25% to 37% for MHs and from 15% to 37% for ACE. While most forecasting centers called for a slightly above-average hurricane season in May/June 2017, our models predicted in June 2017 a very active season, in much better agreement with observations. Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice; NASA MAP program [NNX14AM02G] 6 month embargo; published online: 11 February 2019 This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [e-mail].