Monday, 29 April 2002: 4:45 PM
Forecasting tropical cyclogenesis in the NCEP global model
For several years, the NCEP global model, MRF and AVN runs, had been notorious for its over-prediction of the formation of lower-tropospheric cyclonic circulations in the tropics. These spurious vortices, or "boguscanes" have hampered operational tropical forecasting. Recent improvements in the simulation of physical processes in the model for the 2001 hurricane season have produced more reliable and useful predictions of tropical cyclognesis. Several case studies from the 2001 season, for the Atlantic and east Pacific basins, are presented for which the initial condition had no closed surface circulation in the incipient disturbance. It can be seen that the NCEP global model was able to predict the formation of a tropical cyclone-like system as much as five days in advance, albeit with significant positioning errors, in some cases. Instances where the model predicted non-development, which did or did not verify, are also shown. Some additional diagnosis of the genesis process in the global model is discussed.
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