Performance of the NCEP Operational HWRF Modeling System for 2008-2009 hurricane seasons

The operational Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) coupled modeling system has been run along with GFDL model in real-time, providing 5-day forecast guidance to the National Hurricane Center four times a day for all storms in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins.

Implementation strategies for HWRF upgrades are discussed along with requirement for extensive testing for individual components. Performance of the HWRF modeling system during 2008-2009 hurricane seasons is presented in terms of track and intensity error statistics and some diagnostic studies for selected storm forecasts.

Evolution of large-scale fields, storm size and structure and sensitivity to initialization and cycling, wind-pressure relationship, model response to sheared environment, large positive intensity bias for weaker systems, and several other issues inherent to operational HWRF modeling system are analyzed in this presentation.