Background
Tropical Cyclones are the deadliest and most costly type of Natural Hazard in the Western Hemisphere. Their normal evolution goes as follows:
- persistent area of disturbed weather near a front in the Western Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico to depression, tropical storm or hurricane.
- African Easterly wave which transitions to a depression, tropical storm or hurricane.
Models can help to determine the genesis stages of a tropical depression but also help in identify rapid intensification. Global and high-resolution hurricane models can help to determine the track and intensity of an evolving storm. However, it is the National Hurricane Center’s expert hurricane that has the experience and knowledge to help determine the likelihood of a particular hurricane intensity or track. In addition, they use timely data input from the Airforce Hurricane Hunters and NOAA Hurricane aircraft team to assess the more up to date status of a tropical disturbance.
Tropical Cyclone Forecasts
National Hurricane Center
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/cyclones/
Florida State University Experimental Forecast Tropical Cyclone Genesis Potential fields
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/tcgengifs/
Tropical Tidbits
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/
NCAR Tropical Guidance Forecasts
http://hurricanes.ral.ucar.edu/realtime/current/
Hurricane WRF (HWRF) real-time forecast globally