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NHC Archive of Hurricane Seasons


Hurricane Season Tropical Cyclone Reports

The National Hurricane Center's Tropical Cyclone Reports (formerly called Preliminary Reports) contain comprehensive information on each storm, including synoptic history, meteorological statistics, casualties and damages, and the post-analysis best track (six-hourly positions and intensities).

Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico

Eastern Pacific (out to 140°W)

* Note: 1958-1994 for the Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico and 1988-1994 for the Eastern Pacific are scanned images of the printed reports.


Hurricane Season Tropical Cyclone Advisory Archive

NHC's Tropical Cyclone Advisory Archive is the complete set of tropical cyclone text advisories and graphic images that were issued during the hurricane season.

The tropical cyclone graphics archives are accessed through the Graphics Archive link at the top of the individual storm archive pages (graphics from the mid-2000 season and later are available).

* Note: Advisories prior to 1998 are scanned images of the printed bulletins.


Tropical Cyclone 'Storm Wallet' Electronic Archive

After the dissipation of every tropical cyclone occurring in the Atlantic and eastern north Pacific basins, all of the data and relevant materials related to that cyclone are collected by the NHC staff. The materials are placed in a "storm wallet" which currently takes the form of an expandable binder, or series of binders. These storm wallets have proven to be extremely useful in the post-analysis of many tropical cyclones, both near-term and in some cases, decades later.

The procedure for storing this data dates back to well before the routine use of computers in the office environment. In the Atlantic, the wallet series begins in 1958 and proceeds continuously through the present. In the eastern north Pacific, wallets begin in 1988, the year in which operational responsibility for that basin was assumed by NHC.

In an effort to make this material more accessible, the NHC is currently engaged in a project supported by the NOAA Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP) to optically scan the entire wallet archive and post it on-line. As the project is currently underway, scanned material will be posted as it becomes available.

The scanned documents are available in both JPG and PDF formats. By selecting the link below, you will be directed to a location that contains a series of text files which index the available storm data. You will also see separate directories of both JPG and PDF files which can be accessed to view the data.


Hurricane Season Tropical Cyclone Monthly Summary Archive

At the end of each month during the hurricane season the NHC releases a brief summary of the tropical cyclone activity during the month. These summaries are viewed as interim to the Tropical Cyclone Reports, which are much more comprehensive. The November summary reviews the tropical cyclone activity over the course of the entire season.


Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook and Summary Archive

The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) provides annual hurricane season outlooks in May, and an update in August. A seasonal hurricane summary is also provided.

View the CPC archive of hurricane season outlooks.


NHC Plain-Text Products Archive

The link below provides access to NHC's past plain-text advisories and forecasts. They are sorted by product header.


Reconnaissance Data Archive


National Hurricane Center Forecast Verification

The NHC receives frequent inquiries on the accuracy and skill of its forecasts and of the computer models available to it. To help answer these questions we offer a Verification section. Here you will find information on current and historical NHC forecast errors.


Some Infamous Atlantic Storms


Information on Hurricane History in the Atlantic


Monthly Weather Review Atlantic Annual Summaries 1872-2006

Monthly Weather Summaries of the hurricane seasons for the years 1872 - 2006 are available from the NHC Library. The Monthly Weather Summaries were published by the U.S. Weather Service between 1872-1973. Since 1974 the Monthly Weather Summaries have been published by the American Meteorological Society.


Hurricane Season Climatology

Learn about the progress of a typical hurricane season in terms of the total number of tropical systems and hurricanes produced throughout the year in the Atlantic and East Pacific basins.


Past Tracks of Tropical Cyclones

These are images of Tropical Storm and Hurricane tracks. For more information please see the book "Tropical Cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean 1871-1992", published by the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Atlantic Track Maps for 1851-1910, courtesy of the AOML/HRD Reanalysis Project

Note: Image sizes can very from 190K to about 500K.

 


Past Tracks of Landfalling United States Major Hurricanes

The images and PDF files below are from the NHC's Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical cyclones report.

 


Central North Pacific Hurricane History (1800s - 2006)

(Compiled by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center, Honolulu).


Hurricane Best Track Files (HURDAT)

The HURDAT data format is explained by the Hurricane Research Division.

Atlantic Tracks File 1851-2007  (1.0MB download)

This data was revised 22 April 2008.

The Atlantic Tracks File is an ASCII (text) file containing the 6-hourly (0000, 0600, 1200, 1800 UTC) center locations (latitude and longitude in tenths of degrees) and intensities (maximum 1-minute surface wind speeds in knots and minimum central pressures in millibars) for all Tropical Storms and Hurricanes from 1851 through 2007. More information on this file is found in NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC 22: "A Tropical Cyclone Data Tape for the North Atlantic Basin, 1886-1983: Contents, Limitations, and Uses" by Brian R. Jarvinen, Charles J. Neumann, and Mary A. S. Davis. Documentation of the extension of the Atlantic hurricane database back to 1851 and revisions up to 1910 are available in Landsea et al. (2004).

Detailed information regarding the Atlantic Hurricane Database Re-analysis Project is available from the Hurricane Research Division. Currently, re-analysis results for the years 1851 to 1920 have been completed and are included in the file above.

Eastern North Pacific Tracks File 1949-2007  (595K download)

This data was revised 21 March 2008 and is also available from Colorado State University.

The East Pacific Tracks File is an ASCII (text) file containing the 6-hourly (0000, 0600, 1200, 1800 UTC) center locations (latitude and longitude in tenths of degrees) and intensities (maximum 1-minute surface wind speeds in knots and minimum central pressures in millibars) for all Tropical Storms and Hurricanes from 1949 through 2006. More information on this file is found in NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC 25: A Tropical Cyclone Data Tape for the Eastern and Central North Pacific Basins, 1949-1983: Contents, Limitations, and Uses - Mary A. S. Davis, Gail M. Brown, and Preston Leftwich - September, 1984.


Hurricane Tracks and Storm Data in GIS format

NOAA's Coastal Services Center maintains a detailed online interactive mapping tool called Historical Hurricane Tracks. It offers users the ability to search and display Atlantic Basin and East-Central Pacific Basin tropical cyclone data. The information can also be downloaded in widely-used GIS data formats.

When you visit the Historical Hurricane Tracks, the left side bar allows you to query storms by their Name, ZIP code, Place Name, etc. You can build your custom query for the storm that interests you. Once you get the resultant page of storm data, you can click the "extract tool" (the icon looks like an arrow pointing to a disk drive). Then you can then go to the left side bar and choose the data you wish to download (such as storm tracks for the Atlantic or Pacific Basins, metadata, etc).

Please note that the link provided above will not contain data for the current season until the storms have had their entire datasets analyzed. For example, the 2007 season should be online by early 2008. You might try clicking "Resource Links" on the left side bar to view current hurricane and tropical storm information.

Another good source of vulnerability maps and GIS data is NOAA's Coastal Risk Atlas. This site helps hurricane preparedness efforts by providing the data and methodology necessary to conduct vulnerability assessments for the coastal United States.

The NHC is working to incorporate more GIS-based data in the future. To see all National Weather Service data available in GIS formats, please visit www.weather.gov/gis.


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Page last modified: Monday, 11-Aug-2008 14:23:23 GMT