Performance evaluation of Numerical Tools for Hurricane Forecast (NTHF) system during 2020 North Atlantic tropical cyclones season

This study evaluates the performance of the Numerical Tools for Hurricane Forecast (NTHF) system during the 2020 North Atlantic (NATL) tropical cyclones (TCs) season. The system is configured to provided 5-day forecasts with basic input from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the Global Forecast System. For the NTHF validation, the NHC operational best track was used. The average track errors for 2020 NATL TCs ranged from 48 km at 12 h to 368 km at 120 h. The NTHF track forecast errors displayed an improvement higher than 60% over the guidance Climatology and Persistence (CLIPER) model from 36 h to 96 h, although NTHF was better than CLIPER in all forecast period. The forecasts errors for the maximum wind speed (minimum central pressure ) ranged between 20 km/h and 25 km/h (4 hPa to 8 hPa), but the NTHF model intensity forecasts showed only marginal improvement less than 20% after 78 h over the baseline Decay Statistical Hurricane Intensity Prediction Scheme (D-SHIPS) model. Nevertheless, NTHF's ability to forecast the trajectory and intensity of the 2020 NATL TCs was higher than the NTHF average ability in the 2016-2019 period.