A simple seasonal forecast update of tropical cyclone activity

A simple method based on the cumulative number of tropical cyclones (TCs) up to a given month in the early season is proposed to update the seasonal prediction of the annual number of TCs in a given ocean basin. For the western North Pacific, if this number is below normal by July or August, it is very likely that the annual activity will also be below normal. The reverse (for relating above-normal number with abovenormal annual activity) is also true although the probability is smaller than for the below-normal category. Similar results are found for TCs in the eastern North Pacific and the North Atlantic, with the latter having the smallest likelihood. These results change only slightly when the samples are separated into dependent and independent subsets. © 2008 American Meteorological Society.