Benchmarking progress towards the HFIP goals – results from HFIP Demos

In 2009, NOAA established the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP) to address the need for improvement in one to five day tropical cyclone forecasts, with an emphasis on rapid intensity change. One component of HFIP is an annual Demonstration Project (Demo) for which real-time tropical cyclone forecasts are generated using experimental and operational numerical weather prediction model configurations. The Tropical Cyclone Modeling Team (TCMT) in NCAR's Joint Numerical Testbed (JNT) Program has led annual planning and coordination of the Demo evaluations and performed independent verification analyses. This presentation will discuss results of a TCMT evaluation aimed at assessing HFIP performance using traditional verification metrics as well as through application of new verification and diagnostic tools as appropriate. In particular, the presentation will focus on a five year evaluation of the HFIP Demo.