Performance of tropical cyclone forecasts in the western North Pacific in 2017

Abstract

The forecasts of tropical cyclones (TC) in 2017 from five official guides, six global models, six regional models and six ensemble systems were assessed to study the current capability of track and intensity forecasts for the western North Pacific. The results show that the position errors for official agencies were under 100, 165, 265,335 and 425 km at the lead times of 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120 h, respectively. As the forecast lead times increased, the forecasted TCs propagated, on average, too slow for most official guides. It is encouraging to note that all the models had positive skill scores, there is an overall upward trend in the skill scores of the models during from 2010 to 2017. Furthermore, both global and regional models' intensity forecast skill was increasing year by year from 2010 to 2017. For the ensemble prediction systems (EPSs), ECMWF-EPS was the best forecast system for the lead time less than 72 h, beyond the 72 h, the best EPS belong to NCEP-GEFS.