The hurricane coordination hotline is a dedicated telephone line connecting National Weather Service(NWS) national centers and coastal forecast offices, along with the U.S. Navy Atlantic Meteorology and Oceanography Center at Norfolk, VA, the U.S. Navy facility at Jacksonville, FL, and NASA at Cape Canaveral, FL. The hotline is for coordinating forecasts and warnings of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin.
The Tropical Prediction Center (TPC) in Miami, FL is responsible for issuing tropical cyclone forecasts and warnings for the NWS in the Atlantic basin (and the eastern Pacific basin) and it issues a package of information, including the forecasts and warnings, every six hours, for all tropical cyclones. As part of the forecast and warning process, the TPC initiates a conference call with the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center and Navy Norfolk at 0200 UTC and every six hours for all tropical cyclones for the purpose of coordinating the official forecast to be released by 0300 UTC and every six hours. When the U.S. coast is threatened, the affected coastal NWS weather forecast offices, the regional offices, and the Storm Prediction Center are also included in the call.
The hot line coordination call is the final step in the six-hour cycle of issuing forecasts. This coordination would benefit from the application of IIPS technology. There are a number of graphics available at TPC that would facilitate coordination if they were available to hot line participants. Track model forecasts, probability distributions, and warning areas are some of these graphics. Details of the six-hour forecast cycle will be discussed and examples of useful graphics will be shown