Performance Evaluation of TGFS Typhoon Track Forecasts over the Western North Pacific with Sensitivity Tests on Cumulus Parameterization (2024)

Abstract

This study employed the new generation Taiwan global forecast system (TGFS) to focus on its performance in forecasting the tracks of western North Pacific typhoons during 2022–2023. TGFS demonstrated better forecasting performance in typhoon track compared to central weather administration (CWA) GFS. For forecasts with large track errors by TGFS at the 120th h, it was found that most of them originated during the early stages of typhoon development when the typhoons were of mild intensity. The tracks deviated predominantly towards the northeast and occasionally towards the southwest, which were speculated to be due to inadequate environmental steering guidance resulting from the failure to capture synoptic environmental features. The tracks could be corrected by replacing the original new simplified Arakawa–Schubert (NSAS) scheme with the new Tiedtke (NTDK) scheme to change the synoptic environmental field, not only for Typhoon Khanun, which occurred in the typhoon season of 2023, but also for Typhoon Bolaven, which occurred after the typhoon season, in October 2023, under atypical circulation characteristics over the western Pacific. The diagnosis of vorticity budget primarily analyzed the periods where divergence in typhoon tracks between control (CTRL) and NTDK experiments occurred. The different synoptic environmental fields in the NTDK experiment affected the wavenumber-1 vorticity distribution in the horizontal advection term, thereby enhancing the accuracy of typhoon translation velocity forecasts. This preliminary study suggests that utilizing the NTDK scheme might improve the forecasting skill of TGFS for typhoon tracks. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of NTDK on typhoon tracks, further examination for more typhoons is still in need.