Grading NHC's Tropical Weather Outlook The National Hurricane
Center's Tropical Weather Outlook (TWO) is a text-only product
that rates the potential of disturbed areas of weather to turn
into tropical depressions or tropical storms. The outlooks are
issued four times daily, at 5am, 11am, 5pm, and 11pm EDT. I've
found them to be an excellent guide to what to watch out for.
But how accurate are these outlooks? To find out, Jamie Rhome
and Dan Brown, who are two of the hurricane specialists that
write the Tropical Weather Outlook, verified the accuracy of all
the outlooks issued in 2005 and 2006. They used a three-tiered
classification of threat based on the following language
appearing in the TWO: High: "A tropical depression could form
tonight or the next day." Medium: "Some slow development is
possible." Low: "Tropical storm formation is not expected."
These forecasts were then graded by looking at the "best track"
database of Atlantic hurricanes and seeing if a tropical
depression formed within 48 hours of