Validation of Probabilistic Wind Speed Forecasts for the 2017 and 2018 Hurricane Seasons

Tropical cyclones are associated with various significant social and economic hazards, including wind, storm surge, and rainfall. Despite this, most of the verification effort has been directed toward position and intensity forecasts, while few studies have investigated whether state-of-the-art high-resolution ensemble prediction systems exhibit skill in predicting the associated hazards. TC position and intensity do not always correlate with the TC-related hazards, which can impact locations far afield from the actual TC center. Therefore, we produce probabilistic wind speed forecasts derived from the HWRF ensemble prediction system, which is similar to the Monte Carlo Wind Speed probability model that is currently used in NHC operations. In this talk, we validate the HWRF ensemble wind probabilities against NHC best track wind radii information and compare it to the Monte Carlo Wind Speed probabilities.