07-12-2016, 09:26 AM
A few hard earned tips about understanding hurricane predictions:
If a hurricane is moving at 10 knots or less they are unpredictable. Often a slow moving hurricane will have multiple models agree, but then suddenly deviate from its projected path.
If it is moving faster than 12 knots, the forecast accuracy goes way up.
In general a hurricane moving 12 knots or less has very poor accuracy past 2 days worth of guidance. For all hurricanes (slow and fast) in 2015 the average forecast error inside 48 hours is about 100 miles 72 hours and later degrade to 250 to 300 miles.
Predictions for all models have improved significantly in the last 10 years and last year NOAA had the full force of its new super computers to crunch data for them.
Further reading: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/verification/
If a hurricane is moving at 10 knots or less they are unpredictable. Often a slow moving hurricane will have multiple models agree, but then suddenly deviate from its projected path.
If it is moving faster than 12 knots, the forecast accuracy goes way up.
In general a hurricane moving 12 knots or less has very poor accuracy past 2 days worth of guidance. For all hurricanes (slow and fast) in 2015 the average forecast error inside 48 hours is about 100 miles 72 hours and later degrade to 250 to 300 miles.
Predictions for all models have improved significantly in the last 10 years and last year NOAA had the full force of its new super computers to crunch data for them.
Further reading: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/verification/