Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publication Date
25 January 2024

A North Atlantic synthetic tropical cyclone track, intensity, and rainfall dataset

Authors

Author

Tropical Cyclones (TCs) cause significant socio-economic damages to the US and Caribbean coastal regions annually, making it important to understand TC risk at the local-to-regional scales. However, the short length of the observed record and the substantial computational expense associated with high-resolution climate models make it difficult to assess TC risk using either approach. To overcome these challenges, we developed a database of synthetic TCs using the Risk Analysis Framework for Tropical Cyclones (RAFT). The database includes 40,000 synthetic TC tracks, along-track intensities and storm-induced precipitation. TC tracks generated in RAFT are in reasonable agreement with the observed spatial distribution of TC tracks and basin-scale TC statistics. Specifically along the coast, spatial variations in TC crossing probability and extreme winds upon landfall are well-reproduced by RAFT with R-squared values of 0.81 and 0.73, respectively. In summary, the synthetic TC database constructed with RAFT provides a reasonable pathway for the robust assessment of North Atlantic TC wind and rainfall risks.

Xu, Wenwei, Karthik Balaguru, David R. Judi, Julian Rice, L. Ruby Leung, and Serena Lipari. 2024. “A North Atlantic Synthetic Tropical Cyclone Track, Intensity, And Rainfall Dataset”. Scientific Data 11 (1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. doi:10.1038/s41597-024-02952-7.
Funding Program Area(s)