Performance of the experimental HWRF in the 2008 Hurricane Season

In response to the needs of improving hurricane forecasts, we have built an experimental version of the operational Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting Model (HWRF), which is based on the Weather Research and Forecasting Nonhydrostatic Mesoscale Model of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The experimental HWRF (HWRFx) is adopted to study the intensity change problem at the highest possible resolutions with the existing computing facility, using moving nests to focus the model resolution in the vicinity of the storms. Although this is at an early stage of development, results from real-time experiments in the 2008 hurricane season show that the HWRFx is generally comparable to the NOAA operational models, in terms of the accuracy of both track and intensity forecasts. The HWRFx, however, has a negative bias in the intensity forecasts as opposed to the positive biases of the NOAA operational models. We present in this article a brief description of the HWRFx and its performance during the 2008 hurricane season in comparison with the NOAA operational models. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012