Track Forecast Cone 2022

[carolakaiser]

According to the NHC, the size of the cone of uncertainty changes for the 2022 hurricane season. The size of the cone is important for veer left/right scenarios to identify the correct parameters.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NHC_new_products_services_2022_FINAL.pdf

[wwlwpd]

@jasonfleming would you please provide an evaluation of the changes and outline as best as possible potential impacts to anything we're doing?

The size of the tropical cyclone track forecast error cone for the Atlantic basin will be slightly smaller compared to 2021. For the eastern North Pacific basin, it will be unchanged at the 3, 12 and 36-hour forecast periods and slightly larger at the other time periods when compared to 2021. The cone represents the probable track of the center of a tropical cyclone, and is formed by enclosing the area swept out by a set of imaginary circles placed along the forecast track (at 12, 24, 36 hours, etc.). The size of each circle is set so that two-thirds of historical official forecast errors over the previous five years (2017- 2021) fall within the circle. The circle radii defining the cones in 2022 for the Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins are given in the table below. The change from 2021 values (in parenthesis) are expressed for both nautical miles (n mi) and percent.

[jasonfleming]

Thank you, sorry for the delay. This is just a minor change to storm_track_gen.pl to update the array for the width of the cone.

[wwlwpd]

Thank you!