Australian region

Since 2000, the Laboratory for Atmospheric Research at City University of Hong Kong have been issuing real-time predictions of the annual number of tropical cyclones affecting the western North Pacific. Verifications of the predictions have shown that the predictions are mostly correct within the error bars.

Important Note:
The TC activity over the western North Pacific has a significant decreasing trend in recent years. Our prediction scheme, which was first developed in 1997, with an improvement in 2001, however does not incorporate this trend and therefore overestimated the TC activity during the last few years. The prediction scheme is currently under revision and we will not issue the forecasts for the TC activity over the western North Pacific from the 2012 season.

In addition, starting from the 2014 season, we will be putting out an experimental seasonal forecast using a regional climate model. Details can be found in the Latest Forecast section below. 

Starting from the 2009/10 season, we will attempt to issue real-time forecasts of the annual number of tropical cyclones affecting the Australian region (90^oE-160^oE, 40^oS-0^oN) and its subregion (western Australian region, 90^oE-135^oE, 40^oS-0^oN). These should be considered as experimental forecasts and verifications will be made after each season.  A more thorough evaluation of the performance of the prediction equation will be made in a few years.