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NHC Data Archive (Text)


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Tropical Cyclone Reports

The National Hurricane Center's Tropical Cyclone Reports (formerly called Preliminary Reports) contain comprehensive information on each storm, including synoptic history, meteorological statistics, casualties and damages, and the post-analysis best track (six-hourly positions and intensities).

Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico

Eastern Pacific (out to 140°W)

Central Pacific (west of 140°W)

* Note: 1958-1994 for the Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico and 1988-1994 for the Eastern Pacific are scanned images of the printed reports.

An XML index file is also available for all the Tropical Cyclone Reports.


Tropical Cyclone Advisory Archive

NHC's Tropical Cyclone Advisory Archive is the complete set of tropical cyclone text advisories and graphic images that were issued during the hurricane season.

The tropical cyclone graphics archives are accessed through the Graphics Archive link at the top of the individual storm archive pages (graphics from the mid-2000 season and later are available).

* Note: Advisories prior to 1999 are largely scanned images of the printed bulletins. Not all advisories are available


Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook

The graphical Tropical Weather Outlook (TWO) is a web display intended to be a visual companion product to the text TWO. Archives are available for both the Atlantic and East Pacific basins.


Marine & Advisory Text Products

Use the drop-down below to access NHC's past plain-text forecasts and advisories. They are sorted by product header.


Marine Graphical Products

Unified Surface Analysis: Depiction of synoptic features every six hours from 20S to 50N between 0W and 165W, which is a combined effort between the National Hurricane Center, the Ocean Prediction Center, the Weather Prediction Center, and the Honolulu Weather Forecast Office.

Unified Surface Analysis Archive

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) archives most of the marine graphical products produced by the Tropical Analysis & Forecast Branch (TAFB). These charts can be found at the link below, mostly in the 'Ocean Analysis' and 'Ocean Forecast' sections.

NCEI NCEP Graphics Archive


Best Track Data (HURDAT2)

Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT2) 1851-2022   (6.6MB download)
This dataset was updated on February 6th, 2024. Radius of Maximum Wind (RMW) has been included into the Atlantic HURDAT2 for historic U.S. impacting hurricanes. This is based upon the work that Delián Colón Burgos accomplished while a Hollings Scholar at the National Hurricane Center during the summer of 2022.

This dataset (known as Atlantic HURDAT2) has a comma-delimited, text format with six-hourly information on the location, maximum winds, central pressure, and (beginning in 2004) size of all known tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones. The original HURDAT database has been retired.

Detailed information regarding the Atlantic Hurricane Database Re-analysis Project is available from the Hurricane Research Division.

Northeast and North Central Pacific hurricane database (HURDAT2) 1949-2022  (3.8MB download)
This dataset was updated on April 4th, 2023 to include in the 2022 hurricane season.

This dataset (known as NE/NC Pacific HURDAT2) has a comma-delimited, text format with six-hourly information on the location, maximum winds, central pressure, and (beginning in 2004) size of all known tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones. The original HURDAT database has been retired.

HURDAT Reference
Landsea, C. W. and J. L. Franklin, 2013: Atlantic Hurricane Database Uncertainty and Presentation of a New Database Format. Mon. Wea. Rev., 141, 3576-3592.


Past Track Seasonal Maps

Use the drop-down menus below to access a track map image for the specified season. These images are based on the HURDAT best track database and available in Portable Network Graphics (.png) format.

Atlantic Basin

 

East Pacific Basin

Note: Image sizes can vary from 130K to about 3M.


Past Track Maps of U.S. Landfalling Major Hurricanes

The images below are from the NHC's Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical cyclones report.


Tropical Cyclone GIS Data Format

The NHC maintains an archive of GIS data that is produced in-house. To see other National Weather Service data available in GIS formats, please visit www.weather.gov/gis.

NOAA's Office for Coastal Management maintains a detailed online interactive mapping tool called Historical Hurricane Tracks at www.coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes. This tool offers users the ability to search and display global tropical cyclone data. The information can also be downloaded in widely-used GIS data formats.

When using the Historical Hurricane Tracks tool, the left side bar allows you to query storms by their location, name, year, etc. Search options can easily be refineed for the storm (or storms) that are of interest to the user. Please note that the Historical Hurricane Tracks interface will not contain data for the current season until the storms have had their entire datasets analyzed. For example, the 2013 season should be online by early 2014.


Tropical Cyclone 'Storm Wallet' Electronic Archive

After the dissipation of every tropical cyclone occurring in the Atlantic and eastern north Pacific basins, all of the data and relevant materials related to that cyclone are collected by the NHC staff. The materials are placed in a "storm wallet" which currently takes the form of an expandable binder, or series of binders. These storm wallets have proven to be extremely useful in the post-analysis of many tropical cyclones, both near-term and in some cases, decades later.

The procedure for storing this data dates back to well before the routine use of computers in the office environment. In the Atlantic, the wallet series begins in 1958 and proceeds continuously through the present. In the eastern north Pacific, wallets begin in 1988, the year in which operational responsibility for that basin was assumed by NHC.

In an effort to make this material more accessible, the NHC is currently engaged in a project supported by the NOAA Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP) to optically scan the entire wallet archive and post it on-line. As the project is currently underway, scanned material will be posted as it becomes available.

The scanned documents are available in both JPG and PDF formats. By selecting the link below, you will be directed to a location that contains a series of text files which index the available storm data. You will also see separate directories of both JPG and PDF files which can be accessed to view the data.


Tropical Cyclone Monthly Summary Archive

At the end of each month during the hurricane season the NHC releases a brief summary of the tropical cyclone activity during the month. These summaries are viewed as interim to the Tropical Cyclone Reports, which are much more comprehensive. The November summary reviews the tropical cyclone activity over the course of the entire season.


Tropical Cyclone Annual Summaries 1872-2006 (Monthly Weather Review)

Monthly Weather Summaries of the hurricane seasons for the years 1872 - 2009 are available from the NHC Library. The Monthly Weather Summaries were published by the U.S. Weather Service between 1872-1973. Since 1974 the Monthly Weather Summaries have been published by the American Meteorological Society.


Tropical Cyclone Seasonal Outlook and Summary Archive

The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) provides annual hurricane season outlooks in May, and an update in August. A seasonal hurricane summary is also provided.

View the CPC archive of hurricane season outlooks.


Tropical Cyclone Climatology

View our graphics and information on the climatology of hurricane season in terms of the total number of tropical systems and hurricanes produced throughout the year in the Atlantic and East Pacific basins.

The National Climatic Data Center provides a monthly State of the Climate focus on Hurricanes & Tropical Storms and other relevant climate data.


Tropical Cyclone Forecast Verification

The NHC receives frequent inquiries on the accuracy and skill of its forecasts and of the computer models available to it. To help answer these questions we offer a Verification/Forecast Accuracy section. Here you will find information on current and historical NHC forecast errors.


Reconnaissance Data Archive

Additional reconnaissance data archives are available in the storm wallet electronic archive above.


Deadliest, Costliest, Most Intense Atlantic Tropical Cyclones


Central North Pacific Hurricane History (1800s - present)

(Compiled by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center, Honolulu).