Coupled tropical cyclone seasonal forecasting system over the Northwest Pacific Ocean in NMEFC

Tropical cyclone (TC) activity has significant seasonal, interannual and interdecadal variations. Accurate prediction of TC seasonal activities before the onset of the coming TC season (June-November) can provide sufficient time for the government and the public to prepare for tropical cyclone disasters and minimize risks and life losses.
Based on COAWST model, we developed a new regional coupled seasonal forecasting system for the Northwest Pacific Ocean including a series of technology improvements. The results of multi-year hindcast experiments show that the coupled seasonal forecasting system can effectively improve the tropical cyclone frequency and intensity forecast compared to the CFSv2 real-time seasonal forecast, especially the tropical cyclone frequency forecast of the TC exceeding the typhoon level, but there is still a certain gap between the results in the forecasting system and the observed TC frequency and intensity, which is mainly reflected in the fact that the forecasting season has a higher frequency of TCs and the peak of strong TCs is relatively weaker. This gap may be caused by the forecasting bias of the sea surface temperature.