Vision
Providing tropical cyclone best track data in a centralized location to aid our understanding of the distribution, frequency, and intensity of tropical cyclones worldwide.
Introduction
The intent of the IBTrACS project is to overcome data availability issues. This was achieved by working directly with all the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centers and other international centers and individuals to create a global best track dataset, merging storm information from multiple centers into one product and archiving the data for public use.
One of the goals of the project is for the data processing methods to remain open, such that desired user feedback on data quality is more easily collected. Also, data provenance is completely recorded so all observations and corrections, either through rigorous quality control or user feedback, may be tracked. Data are then provided in various formats given the diversity of the tropical cyclone (TC) data user community.
IBTrACS and the WMO
The World Meteorological Organization
Tropical Cyclone Programme
has endorsed IBTrACS as an official archiving and distribution resource for tropical cyclone best track data.
Why use IBTrACS?
The IBTrACS project:
- Contains the most complete global set of historical tropical cyclones available
- Combines information from numerous tropical cyclone datasets
- Simplifies inter-agency comparisons by providing storm data from multiple sources in one place
- Provides data in popular formats to facilitate analysis
- Checks the quality of storm inventories, positions, pressures, and wind speeds, passing the information on to the user