A tropical cyclone activity seasonal forecast model on the Atlantic basin

A seasonal forecasting method of tropical cyclone activity on the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, which can be applied at the beginning of May is given. The predictors selected are based on relationships between tropical cyclones and varying aspects of the pressure patterns, El Niño / South Oscillation, stratospheric Quasi - Biennial Oscillation zonal winds and the sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic tropical region. Through a linear regression process a set of equations was obtained, which is able to forecast: the number of tropical cyclones (tropical storms plus hurricanes), the number of hurricanes, its destruction potential and the number of tropical cyclones that will develop in the oceanic area, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. In order to give complementary information on possible affectation risk for Cuba, in addition to the prediction of the number of tropical cyclones developing on the Caribbean Sea, the systems that enter this region are determined too.   The rank correlation obtained to determine the method's skill with the working sample (33 hurricane seasons from 1966 to 1998) oscillate between 0.78 and 0.42, being significant at the prefixed level of 5%.