Verification Data and Scheme
- Assessed for 25 North Atlantic landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes 2004-2008.
- Verification performed against ground station reports of 1-minute sustained winds listed in the NHC post-event tropical cyclone reports.
- Verifying observations comprised 490 stations recording tropical storm strength only winds, 58 stations recording hurricane Cat 1 only winds and 19 stations recording hurricane Cat 2 and above winds.
- Accuracy metric used is the Mean +/- SD TSR Wind History Absolute Percentage Error. This is computed as a function of 1-min sustained wind threshold.
- TSR wind history compared to NHC wind history.
- Accuracy metrics used are the Critical Success Index and the False Alarm Percentage.
Results
Please click the thumbnails below to view the accuracy of the TSR wind history (2004-2008), and to see how the TSR and NHC wind histories compare in accuracy.
Summary
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The TSR wind history has a mean absolute error (2004-2008) of just 17% for wind strengths of hurricane Cat 1 and above.
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The TSR wind histories for tropical storm strength only and hurricane Cat 1 only winds are 15-20% more accurate than those provided by NHC.
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Further to the NHC wind history, the TSR wind history also maps the areas affected by hurricane Cat 2, Cat 3, Cat 4 and Cat 5 1-minute sustained winds.
