The range of accuracy of the numerical weather prediction (NWP) guidance for the landfall of Hurricane Juan (2003), from nearly perfect to nearly useless, motivates a study of the NWP forecast errors on 28-29 September 2003 in the eastern North Atlantic.

Although the forecasts issued over the period were of very high quality, this is primarily because of the diligence of the forecasters, and not related to the reliability of the numerical predictions provided to them by the North American operational centers and the research community. A bifurcation in the forecast fields from various centers and institutes occurred beginning with the 0000 UTC run of 28 September, and continuing until landfall just after 0000 UTC on 29 September. The GFS (NCEP), Eta (NCEP), GEM (Canadian Meteorological Centre; CMC), and MC2 (McGill) forecast models all showed an extremely weak (minimum SLP above 1000 hPa) remnant vortex moving north-northwestward into the Gulf of Maine and merging with a diabatically-developed surface low offshore. The GFS uses a vortex-relocation scheme, the Eta a vortex bogus, and the GEM and MC2 are run on CMC analyses that contain no enhanced vortex. The UK Met Office operational, the GFDL, and the NOGAPS (US Navy) forecast models all ran a small-scale hurricane-like vortex directly into Nova Scotia and verified very well for this case. The UKMO model uses synthetic observations to enhance structures in poorly-forecasted areas during the analysis cycle and both the GFDL and NOGAPS model use advanced idealized vortex bogusing in their initial conditions.

The quality of the McGill MC2 forecast is found to be significantly enhanced using a bogusing technique similar to that used in the initialization of the successful forecast models. A verification of the improved forecast is presented along with a discussion of the need for operational quality control of the background fields in the analysis cycle and for proper representation of strong, small-scale tropical vortices.