ORLANDO, Fla. – The words “hurricane season” usher in a flood of all sorts of emotions, thoughts, memories, and more. The 2024 season has left lasting effects and impacts for millions of folks across the globe due to its impactful and destructive nature. What if I told you, it will get better?
We will get better, bringing you the information you need in the most timely and accurate fashion thanks to substantial improvements in the forecast process.
It all starts, with HAFS - the Hurricane Analysis Forecast System...
Now, for some of you enthusiasts who follow the hurricane season from start to finish, perhaps you’re already aware of these newer computer models under constant revision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Hurricane Center.
If not, let me introduce you to HAFS. They were introduced a couple of years back but have been in development for over five years now. The first operational forecast performed by the HAFS suite came about in June 2023.
The reason we call it a “suite” is because this high resolution model comes as a pair. We have the HAFS A and the HAFS B. Both are available for your viewing on public websites like Tropical Tidbits or Weather Models.
Speaking through personal experience, both in and out of professional meteorology, the hurricane models did a spectacular job with many of our heavy hitting hurricanes this past season. The one that stands out to me the most was Milton.
First of all, what makes the HAFS models so revolutionary in tropical forecasting is their ability to not only critically analyze the environment around a tropical cyclone and what aids in their development or weakening. But they can also take information given to them by weather balloons, observations we take on the ground and especially our hurricane recon crews who gather data from within to then forecast the internal mechanisms that occur from inside the core of a hurricane.
We’re talking things like eyewall replacement cycles, concentric eye wall rings, dry air intrusion, diurnal maxes and minimums. This may sound like gibberish if you’re not privy to tropical analysis, but these are what truly drive these systems during their trek over open water and play such a vital role in where they track, whom they impact and how strong.
Have you seen the original “Twister?” You remember the ending when Dorothy — a tornado data-gathering device — finally makes her fateful flight into the F5 tornado toward the movie’s conclusion? Think of HAFS like the Dorothy of hurricanes. They can 3-D model a tropical cyclone, as well as make a solid best guess at what’s going on in the core of the storm as it travels.
You’d be surprised at how much the characteristics of a hurricane itself, versus what happens around them, really determines its projected path.
NOAA scientists observed an overall 8% improvement in general track forecasts alongside a marked 10% improvement in long-range intensity forecasting when monitoring storms during our 2024 hurricane season.
They captured Milton to the T! Global models, lower resolution, like the GFS and the European computer models, struggled with Milton early on, and especially during its two distinct rapid intensification phases. The HAFS models BEFORE THE STORM HAD FORMED, carefully predicted the size and shape of the system as well as completely NAILED both periods where Milton strengthened quickly to Category 5.
The HAFS A and B also did phenomenal in terms of modeling storm structure, precipitation, the wind field, and a bulk of the supercell activity we realized with Milton during landfall.
HAFS also did well with storms such as Beryl, Debbie, Francine, Helene, and even caught Oscar despite the bit of a curve ball that compact storm threw at us.
The numbers may seem minute in the grand perspective. However, when approached specifically by the eyes of folks responsible for providing accurate and concrete predictions when danger looms ahead these are such enormous improvements. Eight percent and 10% aren’t much quite yet, but overtime these values will compound on one another. We always have to start somewhere, and from small percentages you then reap the benefit of saving many lives.
