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Hurricane Forecasting: European Model most Accurate
The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts seems to have the most accurate hurricane forecasting model of the several models currently being used. Its predictions for Hurricane Joaquin had the storm heading out to sea instead of making landfall in North America. And that is exactly what is happening. Most US models had predicted several successive landfalls, each proving wrong as the days went by.
But this isn't the first time. The European Model predicted Hurricane Sandy's left hook far in advance, unlike other models.
Over the last few decades, faster computers, superior models and new data have allowed all weather forecasting to improve, by a lot. But the United States hasn't quite matched that effort. It didn't invest in computing power and models that kept up with the potential for better forecasts.
By early 2013, the European model had nearly 10 times the raw computing capacity of the Global Forecast System, or GFS, which is run by the National Weather Service. There were other problems, too, and the cumulative effect was obvious and irrefutable: The GFS was doing worse than its rivals, and it played out in high-profile cases, like Sandy.
The problem is not limited to the lack of computer power, but also the amount of data collected and fed into the models to initiate the modeling process.
"It is clear that our initializations are inferior," said Cliff Mass, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. "That's the real problem. They (the EU Model) have a lot more people and have taken a more sophisticated approach." Differences in initialization were probably at play in the different forecast for Joaquin. "There's a subtlety that the European center is getting right that we're not."
TFA found on the Tampa Bay Times [tampabay.com]
