Analog Ensemble Forecasts of Tropical Cyclone Tracks in the Australian Region

Tropical cyclone tracks in the Australian basin are predicted by an analog ensemble forecast model. It is self-adapting in its search of optimal ensemble members from historic cyclone tracks by creating a metric that minimizes the error of the ensemble mean forecast. When compared with the climatology-persistence reference model, the adapted analog forecasts achieve great-circle errors that improve the reference model by 15%-20%. Ensemble mean forecast errors grow almost linearly with ensemble spread.