Evaluation of Hurricane Wind Field Forecasts from Global Models Within the TIGGE Archive

Short- and mid-range forecasts of select North Atlantic hurricanes over the past few seasons—including Sandy (AL182012), Gonzalo (AL082014), Irene (AL092011), and Isaac (AL092012)—are analyzed to quantify biases and error magnitudes found across a storm's entire wind field. The forecasts are taken from state-of-the-art numerical weather prediction models produced by the National Centers for Environmental Protection (NCEP), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the UK Met Office, and the Canadian Meteorological Centre (CMC) and are stored in the World Meteorological Organization's THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) database. These model forecasts are compared against post-storm HWind reconstructions, which are objective analyses of a storm's wind field based on an comprehensive standardized set of observational platforms. Ultimately, the model wind fields compare somewhat favorably to the baseline HWind analyses, as they are able to replicate many of the asymmetries and structural characteristics found within the observed wind fields. However, the model forecasts have some large systematic biases, specifically with regards to inner core intensity and structure, owing at least in part to the limited resolution of the global models.