Western North Pacific tropical cyclones in the Met Office Global Seasonal Forecast System: Performance and ENSO teleconnections

Abstract

The performance of the UK Met Office Global Seasonal Forecast System (GloSea5-GC2) for tropical cyclone (TC) frequency for the western North Pacific (WNP) in July-October is evaluated, using 23 years of ensemble forecasts (1993-2015). Compared to observations, GloSea5 overpredicts the climatological TC frequency in the eastern WNP and underpredicts it in the western and northern WNP. These biases are associated with an El Niño-type bias in TC-related environmental conditions (e.g., low-level convergence and steering flow), which encourages too many TCs to form throughout the tropical Pacific and slows TC propagation speed.For interannual TC frequency variability, GloSea5 overestimates the observed negative TC– ENSO teleconnection in the western and northern WNP, associated with an eastward shift in the ENSO teleconnection to environmental conditions. Consequently, GloSea5 fails to predict interannual TC variability in the northeast WNP (south of Japan); performance is higher in the southwest WNP (e.g., the South China Sea) where the sign of the TC-ENSO teleconnection is correct. This study suggests the need to reduce biases in environmental conditions and associated ENSO teleconnections in GloSea5 to improve the TC prediction performance in the NWP.