Statistical Modelling of the Relationship Between Main Development Region Sea Surface Temperature and \emph{Landfalling} Atlantic Basin Hurricane Numbers

TL;DR

This paper develops statistical models to predict landfalling Atlantic hurricanes based on sea surface temperatures, highlighting differences from basin hurricane predictions using historical data from 1900 to 2005.

Contribution

It introduces and tests simple statistical models linking sea surface temperatures to landfalling hurricane counts, emphasizing their distinct behavior from basin hurricane models.

Findings

Models show different relationships for landfalling versus basin hurricanes.

Historical data from 1900 to 2005 used for model testing.

Results indicate the need for separate modeling approaches for landfalling hurricanes.

Abstract

We are building a hurricane number prediction scheme that relies, in part, on statistical modelling of the empirical relationship between Atlantic sea surface temperatures and landfalling hurricane numbers. We test out a number of simple statistical models for that relationship, using data from 1900 to 2005 and data from 1950 to 2005, and for both all hurricane numbers and intense hurricane numbers. The results are very different from the corresponding analysis for basin hurricane numbers.