Hurricane Alex Forecast Verification
Written by Derek Ortt on February 19, 2005

In general, the NWHHC forecasts for Hurricane Alex indicated that the hurricane would either remain just offshore of the Carolina coast, or move just inland. No forecasts suggested that the center would move well inland. These forecasts correctly anticipated the turning to the NE and then to the east that resulted from the large trough that was approaching the East Coast at the same time that Alex was threatening.

Despite this, the track forecast errors tended to be above the National Hurricane Center 10-Year Average. The primary reason for this was because the acceleration that occurred after Alex made the easterly turn was not properly anticipated. However, the forecasts that were made for the periods where Alex was a threat to the USA were well below normal. It should be noted that for all time periods, the forecast errors were well below those of CLIPER (Franklin, 2004)

NWHHC did recommends watches and warnings with Alex. It needs to be restated that these were only recommendations and that official watches and warnings are available either from the National Hurricane Center or local emergency management officials. The Hurricane Watch recommended by NWHHC was at 1500 UTC Aug 2 and the Warning was at 0000 UTC, Aug 3. Both of these were after the desired lead times. The main reason for this was that Alex was not originally anticipated to become a hurricane.

For synoptic history as well as Official Watches and Warnings, please view the National Hurricane Center Tropical Cyclone Report

Larger sample of CLIPER forecasts than NWHHC forecasts

Click Here to view the actual forecast errors for each individual Alex Forecast

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