Abstract:
The disastrous impacts of tropical cyclones in terms of loss of lives and damage to the economies of all nations affected by these storms are well known. This talk will present an overview of progress achieved in the last decade in providing tropical cyclone track forecast guidance at a number of regional and national centres. In many cases, the accuracy of the 72 hour track forecasts is equivalent to that of the 48-hour forecasts only 10 years ago. Contributions from various factors that have led to these track forecast improvements will be described. Future needs to continue this improvement will be proposed. A number of issues that must be addressed to convert improved track forecast guidance to more accurate and earlier warnings will be suggested.