The next generation of hurricane forecast modeling began tracking hurricanes for the first time this June. The Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System, or HAFS, provides high-resolution track and intensity forecasts, similar to the guidance long provided by specialized hurricane models called HMON and HWRF.
HAFS has already shown significant improvements over its predecessor HWRF. In experimental runs from 2019 to 2022, HAFS has produced track predictions that are 10-15% more accurate than HWRF. This season, HAFS will run in parallel with HWRF and HMON as NOAA completes the full transition to HAFS.
The advantage HAFS has is how it represents each storm in a moving nest or gridded area, which allows the model to zoom in on hurricanes across the Atlantic and Pacific basins. The moving nest functions like a high-definition TV where weather details can be seen or resolved down to 1.2 mile wide grids of data.
This helps the model track multiple hurricanes at once, which has been shown to improve the accuracy of our forecasts of track and intensity, or wind speeds.
The sources of information going into the model come from satellite observations, radar data, NOAA Hurricane Hunter Aircraft and U.S. Air Force Reserve flight-level data of winds, moisture, temperature and GPS radio occultation observations.
This technique improves the prediction of interactions between multiple tropical cyclones, as well as the prediction of how storms behave once they make landfall. In turn it provides more accurate and timely information about wind, rainfall, and tornado threats inland.