Multilevel modeling for seasonal hurricane prediction

Multilevel statistical models are now widely used in social science research. Here we apply this approach to model seasonal hurricane activity over the North Atlantic basin. Single-level models including linear and generalized linear models are used to describe basin-wide activity, but models capable of capturing within-region variations have not been attempted. Here we demonstrate an example of multilevel model using hurricane data back to 1899. The models are built using the open-source statistical software (R) and a hexagon tessellation of the basin into contiguous regions. The model can be useful in anticipating basin-wide and regional hurricane activity some months in advance.