Best Track update for 2020 data and a bug fix

[IBTrACS News]

Hi IBTrACS users!

Update

The BT data for calendar year 2020 is now included in IBTrACS and is available online. This includes 2020 updates for JTWC, HKO, JMA, and IMD. IBTrACS already has NHC data because it was added in May.

The Southern Hemisphere data are updated through the 2019-2020 Season. The 2020-2021 season will be added when all BT data become available* (which will be next year when JTWC data is available for the Southern Hemisphere).

Bug Fix

Two small bugs were pointed out this year through the IBTrACS Q&A forum. Fixes for these bugs are included with this annual update. The two bugs were:

- Missing SSHS flags for storms before 1945 - For many of the early storms, the SSHS was often unavailable from US sources, so it was listed as missing, but a flag of -1 was assigned instead of -5 (-1 means TD while -5 should have been used for missing). This inadvertently listed those storms as tropical depressions.

- Line shapefiles - An error occurs when a line has the same vertices (location) for the start and end of the line. Basically, if the storm is momentarily stationary, the line is undefined and causes errors. To avoid this error, we added a small change in position (~1 km) such that a line can be drawn. This only affects drawing lines on the shapefiles.

And please remember, tracks marked provisional have not received post-season reanalysis and should be considered preliminary.

Thanks-

-Ken (on behalf of the IBTrACS team)

* More explanation - This approach is necessary because IBTrACS does not intermingle provisional data (e.g., real time track data) with post season analysis.