CCU’s 2017 hurricane forecast accuracy surpasses other models
"CCU's outlook was as good as or better than the other forecast instruments developed by other organizations for this extraordinary hurricane season, both in terms of the seasonal outlook and number of landfalls," said Len Pietrafesa, senior research professor in CCU's School of the Coastal Environment and a former chair of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Advisory Board.
While not as accurate as last year's forecast, which was spot on in nearly every major category, the HUGO team's 2017 outlook (graph above) proved to be more correct than the forecast by Colorado State University in all but one major category (the total number of named storms, on which CCU and Colorado State differed by one storm), and CCU performed well in comparison to all 22 of the organizations that produce hurricane outlook reports annually, according to Pietrafesa.
"A key element of the CCU HUGO outlook is the number of hurricanes that will make landfall," said Pietrafesa. "Our team predicted a range of two to four landfalls for the two coastlines taken together, and the final number was three. No other organization was as accurate."
In addition to forecasting the seasonal outlook, the HUGO team calculates specific data on the probable pathway, wind intensities, precipitation and storm surge of approaching storms in real time. Flooding data produced by the team in advance of Hurricane Irma was highly accurate, according to Pietrafesa, and was useful in helping emergency management officials and CCU student affairs personnel with their logistical planning.
"The information we received from the HUGO team was invaluable in our interactions with the South Carolina National Guard in determining how to allocate resources in our response to Hurricane Irma," said Lt. Col. Marguerite McClam, commanding officer of the engineering detachment of the South Carolina State Guard. "Thanks to the precision of their forecasts, we were able to avoid sending personnel directly into the path of the storm in Florida as it approached."
CCU's Burroughs & Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies (BCCMWS), where the HUGO team is headquartered, takes an integrative approach to the study of coastal processes, focusing on the interactions between the land, the ocean and the atmosphere. The center was awarded National Science Foundation grants in recent years that have enabled the group to assimilate data from new and novel observing systems developed by BCCMWS director Paul Gayes into the CCU numerical weather model produced by CCU professor Shaowu Bao, a computational, deterministic numerical modeler specializing in meteorology and oceanography. CCU has also received a grant from NOAA, and a supplemental grant from the state, which is expanding the statewide real-time observing network, according to Pietrafesa.
"In front of an incoming storm, we use data that includes ocean currents, wind speeds, temperature, water levels in inland streams and rivers, and other atmospheric and environmental factors in real time, coming from the NOAA and new state observing systems that have engaged many of the South Carolina counties," said Pietrafesa. "The improved computational results yield specific data on probable storm surge and inundation, including time, location and statistical representations of water depths, and also flooding of inland locales, up to the mountains."
The HUGO model system was developed in 2013 by a group of climatological and weather scholars of international standing led by Pietrafesa and Bao. Other members of the CCU team are Tingzhuang Yan, a meteorological oceanographer with a background in statistical modeling of climate and weather systems and a Burroughs & Chapin Research Scholar at CCU, and Gayes, longtime CCU professor and BCCMWS director.
For more information about CCU's HUGO Project, contact Bao at 843-349-6633 or sbao@coastal.edu or Pietrafesa at 704-910-7047 or lpietraf@coastal.edu.