The Atlantic Hurricane Database Re-analysis Project is an effort to extend and revise the National Hurricane Center's North Atlantic hurricane database (or HURDAT). Going back to 1851 and revisiting storms in more recent years, information on tropical cyclones is revised using an enhanced collection of historical meteorological data in the context of today's scientific understanding of hurricanes and analysis techniques.

To receive email updates about progress in the Atlantic Hurricane Re-analysis Project, send an email to Chris Landsea.

April 2013 - The 2013 Northeast and North Central Pacific Basin Tropical Cyclone Best Tracks have been finalized and made available in the Data page. A revised HURDAT 2 for this basin has been developed that includes asynoptic time data, landfalling data, wind radii data, and non-developing tropical depressions. Some minor typographical errors have been identified, corrected and noted in the Metadata files.

February 2013 - A new paper by Landsea and Franklin has just been published in Monthly Weather Review. This paper estimates the uncertainty (average error) for Atlantic Basin best track parameters through a survey of the Hurricane Specialists who maintain and update the Atlantic Hurricane Database. A comparison is then made with a survey conducted over a decade ago to qualitatively assess changes in the uncertainties. Finally, we discuss the implications of the uncertainty estimates for NHC analysis and forecast products as well as for the prediction goals of the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program.

February 2013 - The 2012 Atlantic basin tropical cyclone best tracks have been finalized and made available in the Data page.

December 2012 - A reanalysis of the 1936 to 1940 hurricane seasons has been conducted. All of the existing 46 tropical storms and hurricanes were revised (one of which - original storm #7 in 1938 - was removed from the database as it was extratratropical throughout its lifetime). Additionally, seven new tropical storms (three of which reached hurricane intensity) were discovered and added into the database. The biggest impact hurricane of these five seasons was, by far, the Great New England hurricane of 1938. This cyclone was retained as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale at its landfall in New York and New England, though the peak sustained winds at landfall in New York were increased from 85 kt (100 mph) in the original database to 105 kt (120 mph) in the revision.

1. Re-analysis results:
   1. Documentation for 1851 to 1910
   2. Documentation for 1911 to 1920
   3. Documentation for 1921 to 1930
   4. Documentation for 1944 to 1953
   5. Data
2. How to submit changes to the HURDAT
3. Hurricane Andrew's Upgrade
4. Re-assessment of Hurricane Donna (1960) in Florida
5. U.S. Hurricane History by State (NWS sites)
6. HURDAT Reanalysis Related Publications
7. Publications of Chris Landsea

Picture from: "Florida's Hurricane History", by Jay Barnes