Recent Updates to FNMOC Tropical Cyclone Forecast Products

This presentation will describe recent and planned changes in three tropical model aids run operationally at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) and plans to add a fourth tropical aid for 2012. First, we describe recent upgrades to our Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory hurricane model (GFDN), which has provided guidance for storms in all basins, including the Indian Ocean and Southern Hemisphere, since 1996 (Rennick, 1999). The GFDN is nested within the Navy's global numerical weather prediction system [Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS); Rosmond et al., 2002], which provides the second FNMOC tropical model aid. FNMOC runs a tropical cyclone tracker from NOGAPS (distributed as NGPS), incorporating a legacy tracking algorithm (Marchok, 2002). We plan to update the tracking algorithm to a community standard for 2012. Our third operational TC aid is based on our global 20-member ensemble forecast system that produces a 20-member tropical cyclone tracker aid (distributed as NG01, NG02, …, NG20). We plan to upgrade the dynamic core of both global systems in 2012 to use a semi-Lagranian/semi-implicit formulation. Finally, we plan to provide a fourth TC aid in 2012 based on a new formulation for the Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) which is optimized for tropical cyclone analysis and prediction (COAMPS-TC; Doyle, 2011). Plans for the operational deployment of COAMPS-TC in the 2012 tropical season will be detailed.

1. Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, Monterey, CA 93943