Fig 3. Best track minimum central pressure and maximum sustained winds
speed curves for Tropical Storm Emily.
c. Casualty and Damage Statistics
There are no reports of casualty and damage from Emily.
d. Forecast and Warning Critique
Although the formation of a tropical depression was forecast,
advisories on Emily were not initiated until data from the Air Force
reconnaissance plane indicated that the system was already a fully
developed tropical storm. Due to the high variability on the
convection, Dvorak T-numbers were low and did not justify tropical
storm or even tropical depression intensity at that time. Emily was
forecast to reach hurricane status based on the Statistical Hurricane
Intensity Prediction Scheme (SHIPS) and the GFDL models but the storm
never acquired winds higher than 45 knots.
The NHC average official track errors in n mi for Emily (excluding
the tropical depression stage) were 31 (13 cases), 70 (11 cases), 130
(9 cases), 208 (7 cases) and 332 (3 cases), respectively, for the
12-, 24-, 36-, 48-, and 72-hour forecast periods. These errors for
12, 24 and 36 hour periods are very near the 1989-1998 average
official forecast errors. However, the errors for 48 and 72 hours
were nearly 30% larger than the average.