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A new aircraft hurricane wind climatology and applications in assessing the predictive skill of tropical cyclone intensity using high‐resolution ensemble forecasts
Author(s) -
Judt Falko,
Chen Shuyi S.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2015gl064609
Subject(s) - tropical cyclone , meteorology , environmental science , climatology , maximum sustained wind , storm , atlantic hurricane , wind speed , tropical cyclone forecast model , numerical weather prediction , intensity (physics) , wind shear , forecast skill , geology , geography , wind gradient , physics , quantum mechanics
Hurricane surface wind is a key measure of storm intensity. However, a climatology of hurricane winds is lacking to date, largely because hurricanes are relatively rare events and difficult to observe over the open ocean. Here we present a new hurricane wind climatology based on objective surface wind analyses, which are derived from Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer measurements acquired by NOAA WP‐3D and U.S. Air Force WC‐130J hurricane hunter aircraft. The wind data were collected during 72 aircraft reconnaissance missions into 21 western Atlantic hurricanes from 1998 to 2012. This climatology provides an opportunity to validate hurricane intensity forecasts beyond the simplistic maximum wind speed metric and allows evaluating the predictive skill of probabilistic hurricane intensity forecasts using high‐resolution model ensembles. An example of application is presented here using a 1.3 km grid spacing Weather Research and Forecasting model ensemble forecast of Hurricane Earl (2010).