Input Parameters
This is just a quick overview of the major parameters and measurements provided by NOAA that get pulled into the model. There are a few different sources for these parameters, though in the end the sources all have pretty much the same data.
Time
- Timestamp
- Data is generally provided in Track datasets, where each set of measurements has a corresponding timestamp.
- Includes Year, Month, Day, Hour, and often Minute, but hour is the primary resolution
- measurements are usually at 6 hour intervals, but sometimes interim measurements are made for large or notables storms
- Models tend to interpolate between time steps for more uniform coverage
Position and Movement
- Position
- Provided as a Lat/Lng, to a 10th of a degree resolution
- Range: 90W-90E, 90S-90N
- Most NOAA products provide this in the format 1234E, 5678S. So parsing takes dealing with the N/S E/W character and dividing to get the decimal
- Heading
- Direction of Hurricane Movement
- Range: 0-369 Degrees
- Generally reported in Compass Degrees (North is 0 degrees)
- Forward Speed - FSpeed
- Forward motion of the hurricane along its heading
- Range: 0-100 kts
- Generally reported in Knots (~1.15 mph = 1 kt)
Intensity
- Velocity of Max Wind - VMax
- Range: 0-250 kts
- Maximum 1-minute average sustained wind speed in the hurricane
- Generally reported in Knots (~1.15 mph = 1 kt)
- This is the major intensity measurement
- Minimum Sea Level Pressure - MSLP
- Also known as Central Pressure - CP
- The minimum barometric pressure in the storm
- Range: 850-1050 mb
- Generally reported in millibars
- This is an alternate intensity measurement, and there are reasonably good conversions between this and Vmax
Structure
- Radius of Maximum Wind - RMW, Rmax
- The radius, from the center of the hurricane eye, where the maximum wind speed occurs
- Range: 0-999 nmi
- Generally measured in Nautical Miles (~1.15 mi = 1 nmi)
- This basically is the radius of the eye wall, since in a well-formed hurricane that's where the maximum winds are
- This is one of the more important model parameters, and one of the least accurate unfortunately