Atlantic hurricane forecast: a statistical analysis

Abstract

Purpose – A reliable forecast of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin has the potential to help mitigate the economic losses caused by hurricanes. One of the difficult problems is to make reasonable annual forecast of catastrophe losses based on the short record of historical observations. Atmospheric conditions tend to influence tropical cyclone development. Considering the complex interactions among climatological factors, prediction of future hurricane activity is challenging. In this study, the authors are attempting to predict the number of Atlantic hurricanes for a given year based on two different approaches.Design/methodology/approach – In part I, an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) is used to model a long‐run behavior of Atlantic hurricane frequency. The authors present a comparison of CSU's forecast with ARIMA model. Part II focuses on the relationship between the climate signals and hurricane activity and introduces a new approach in including climate indices into the predic...