Tropical Cyclone Forecast Verification by India Meteorological Department for North Indian Ocean: a Review

Abstract

ABSTRACT The tropical cyclone (TC) forecast verification procedure followed by India Meteorological Department (IMD) is reviewed herewith as compared to the standard prescribed by World Meteorological Organisation. The limitations in the present procedure and the future scope are presented and analysed. The IMD has considerably increased its efforts in recent years in the areas of TC forecasting and verification. Many facilities have been developed to enable a detailed assessment of the global model’s performance in the forecasting of TCs as well as operational TC forecast performance. Further development of these facilities is being undertaken by IMD. There are grey areas in TC forecast verification of IMD in the field of calculation of forecast error in surface wind radii in geographical quadrants, which is yet to start. Also there is need for improvement in verification of storm surge, wave height, coastal inundation forecasts and heavy rainfall forecasts by calculating the skill parameters and also by improving the analysis data required for verification of forecasts. Similarly there is need for verification of strike probability as well as dynamical cone of uncertainty as given by ensemble prediction system.