HISTORY	HURRICANE HAZARDS			FORECAST	PREPARE	ACT
Hurricane History	Storm Surge	High Winds & Tornadoes	Marine Safety	Forecast Process	Be Prepared	Take Action
Sunday 27 May	Monday 28 May	Tuesday 29 May	Wednesday 30 May	Thursday 31 May	Friday 1 June	Saturday 2 June

Models

To forecast the track and intensity of tropical cyclones, the CPHC uses several mathematical computer models that represent the tropical cyclone and its environment in a greatly simplified manner. Each of the models has particular strengths and weaknesses, and researchers are constantly working to improve them.

If you read the hurricane discussions (described in the products subsection), you will see forecasters referring to different models and giving their reasons why they think particular models are doing a better job of representing current and future conditions. Acronyms for models commonly discussed are GFDL, CLIPER, AVN, LBAR, BAM, NOGAPS (the U.S. Navy's model), and UKMET (the model run by the United Kingdom's Meteorological Service). These are all track models. Intensity model acronyms include SHIFOR, SHIPS, and GFDL.

Numerical models have different strengths and biases and often produce conflicting guidance. Hurricane forecasters use their knowledge and experience to decide which models are best describing the movement and behavior of each individual cyclone at any particular time. The dregree of confidence a forecaster places in the model guidance used is reflected in the discussion of probabilities and margin of error. Emergency managers and civil defense planners must consider this uncertainty in planning for storm impacts and landfall locations to account for conditions that may be worse than forecast.