Hurricane track forecast cones from fluctuations

Trajectories of tropical cyclones may show large deviations from predicted tracks leading to uncertainty as to their landfall location for example. Prediction schemes usually render this uncertainty by showing track forecast cones representing the most probable region for the location of a cyclone during a period of time. By using the statistical properties of these deviations, we propose a simple method to predict possible corridors for the future trajectory of a cyclone. Examples of this scheme are implemented for hurricane Ike and hurricane Jimena. The corridors include the future trajectory up to at least 50 h before landfall. The cones proposed here shed new light on known track forecast cones as they link them directly to the statistics of these deviations.