Objective Diagnosis of Binary Tropical Cyclone Interactions forthe Western North Pacific Basin

Abstract

Objective criteria for distinguishing among three modes of binary tropical cyclone (TC) interactions (TCI) are defined and tested with an eight-year sample of western North Pacific TCs. These objective criteria lead to an approximate 4:1 ratio of hits to misses of the subjectively assigned TCIs. False alarm rates of approximately 20% are also found, which indicate that similar track deflections may occur for other reasons, and the objective identifications must still be carefully validated by a forecaster.