Australian REID CLIPER

In 1991 a new form of CLIPER was developed for forecasting tropical cyclone motion in the Australian region. This CLIPER used a recursive forecast algorithm. A combination of Best track and operational forecast positions were used. This allowed a worst case estimate of the forecast errors the system would produce when used in real time.

This CLIPER has proved very successful and is currently used in the Australian region as a first guess for forecasting Tropical Cyclone position, as part of the Australian Tropical Cyclone Workstation (ATCW) system. Unfortunately only 10 years of operational data was available for use in developing the CLIPER equations.

In this paper the AUS CLIPER is redeveloped using best track data from 1958 to 1999 and operational data from 1980 to 1999. The extra operational data has lead to the operational correction equations being more stable, and so producing more accurate results.

Results are presented using both the 1991 and 2000 versions of the AUS CLIPER at the effect of the AUS CLIPER on forecast errors is displayed.