The lack of satellite imagery prior to 1966 and limited aircraft reconnaissance has led to an indefinite number of tropical cyclones (TCs) in the Atlantic Basin remaining undetected by traditional surface observational networks. As a result, these cyclones were not identified by operational forecasting centers like the National Hurricane Center and are not a part of the consensus Atlantic TC climatology. While previous research suggests that this historical undersampling exists, there is considerable disagreement as to its true magnitude. However, it is widely accepted that these “missing storms” have led to difficulties in interpreting long-term trends in TC activity, adding uncertainty to the dialogues over the nature, role, and existence of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation and the possible influence of climate change on TC activity, among many others.
This research seeks to add information to Atlantic Basin TC climatology by developing a scheme to identify previously unknown potential cyclones in the pre-satellite era. The technique utilizes advances in global reanalysis methods to identify candidate events within certain probabilistic bounds in order to improve existing TC Best-Track reanalysis efforts. Briefly, a series of thermodynamic proxies of TC passage in the NOAA/CIRES 20th Century Reanalysis dataset is first constructed. Signatures in these metrics that are of similar amplitude and morphology to known TCs but do not correspond to known Best-Track cyclones are identified within the reanalysis solution for the test hurricane seasons of 1951 through 1958. Synoptic verification of these candidate events using historical surface observation datasets sorts the events into three broad confidence bins.
The most common outcome of the observational verification process is that the candidate event does not represent a credible possible addition to BT climatology. However, a small but significant number of the candidate events were found to present highly compelling cases for further examination by ongoing TC climatology revision efforts and may eventually warrant addition to the Best-Track database. Several of these candidate events, representing a broad range of possible uses of the technique, are presented in detailed case studies. Additionally, application of the reanalysis-based methodology to the Eastern Pacific Basin demonstrates promise for use in other TC basins around the world. In general, results suggest that future work extending the technique developed in this research may potentially lead to a more complete climatological record of global TC incidence and an improved understanding of long-term trends in activity.
