Iterative refinement and smoothing of cyclone tracks from mean sea level pressure data

Abstract

Local nonlinear regression fits are applied to mean sea level pressure data from \(24\) member ensemble forecasts of three recent tropical cyclones in the Australian region. Cyclone track estimates derived from the fits are subjected to verification calculations in the form of error-spread diagrams, demonstrating consistency with a recent global ensemble study, with attention also given to cross and along track error components. References R. E. Benestad and D. Chen, The use of a calculus-based cyclone identification method for generating storm statistics, Tellus A 58(4):473–486 (2006). doi:10.1111/j.1600-0870.2006.00191.x R. Fletcher, Practical Methods of Optimization, Wiley (1987). T. M. Hamill, J. S. Whitaker, M. Fiorino and S. G. Benjamin, Global Ensemble Predictions of 2009's Tropical Cyclones Initialized with an Ensemble Kalman Filter, Mon. Wea. Rev. 139:668–688 (2011). doi:10.1175/2010MWR3456.1 G. J. Holland, An Analytic Model of the Wind and Pressure Profiles in Hurricanes, Mon. Wea. Rev. 108:1212–1218 (1980). doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1980)108<1212:AAMOTW>2.0.CO;2 J. D. Kepert, Objective Analysis of Tropical Cyclone Location and Motion from High-Density Observations, Mon. Wea. Rev. 133:2406–2421 (2005). doi:10.1175/MWR2980.1 R. J. Murray and I. Simmonds, A numerical scheme for tracking cyclone centres from digital data Part I: development and operation of the scheme, Australian Meteorological Magazine 39:155–166 (1991). http://www.bom.gov.au/amoj/docs/1991/murray1.pdf D. H. Smith, M. Naughton and A. Sulaiman, Multiscale verification calculations for regional ensemble forecasts, ANZIAM J. 52:C882–C898 (2011). http://journal.austms.org.au/ojs/index.php/ANZIAMJ/article/view/3936 M. R. Sinclair, Objective Identification of Cyclones and Their Circulation Intensity, and Climatology, Weather and Forecasting 12:595–612 (1997). doi:10.1175/1520-0434(1997)012<0595:OIOCAT>2.0.CO;2 J. Heming, Tropical cyclone forecast verification method, UK Met Office, (2012). http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/tropicalcyclone/method See also doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1998)126<1323:TPOTUK>2.0.CO;2