An examination of the National Hurricane Center Track Forecasts of Tropical Cyclones over Florida and the Gulf of Mexico

A regional verification of the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) track forecasts was performed from 2008 to 2012 analyzing four separate areas near or over the United States. The areas considered were the northeastern U.S., the southeastern U.S., the Gulf of Mexico, and Florida. Preliminary results show that the lowest track errors were for tropical cyclones (TCs) near Florida with the largest errors for TCs near the northeastern United States. The errors were broken into along- and cross-track error components and biases were calculated. In general, the along-track errors were larger than the cross-track errors for most regions indicating that the NHC forecasts had more difficulty predicting the timing rather than the direction of TC tracks. The largest bias existed in the Gulf of Mexico where a pronounced slow bias was present. This study will focus on the Gulf of Mexico track bias and investigate possible reasons for this behavior. In addition, the study will examine if a similar slow bias exists near Florida.