Development Priorities

Further TCGP development awaits identification of funding sources. The project's lead developer, Jonathan Vigh, is now a Project Scientist I at NCAR and therefore must work mainly on the projects that are funding him. He'd like to devote more time to TCGP development, and still devotes his spare time to this project. To make further substantial progress will require obtaining funding support for TCGP. When and if such funding is obtained, he has identified the following phases for planned future development.

Here is an outline of the project priorities in order of expected completion:

  • Phase I was released on 14 August 2011, and includes the following features:
    • Implements real-time plots of TC forecast aids for the Atlantic, Eastern Pacific, and Central Pacific basins for the following types of plots:
    • Opens up the repository for full data access for these three basins.
    • Gathers the real-time Vortex Data Messages (VDMs) and links to these from the individual storm pages.
    • Adds an overview map to summarize global TC activity. Clicking on a storm here takes users to an individual storm page that links to all the current content related to that storm.
    • Provides full documentation about the site, the data, and the plots.
  • Phase II will include the following additions:
    • Extends the open-source repository to the Northwest Pacific, the North Indian Ocean, the Southern Hemisphere basins.
      • Initially, the global basin a-decks will include the UK Met Office deterministic run, the GFS deterministic runs, and possibly another global model or two. Additional forecast aids will be progressively added as time goes on.
    • Turns on real-time plots of the forecast aids for the Western Pacific, North Indian, and Southern Hemisphere basins.
    • Develops additional web infrastructure for better archive access to all past content from the real-time section of the site.
  • Phase III is contigent on funding support, and will include the following additions:
    • Implements real-time plots of structure and intensity data derived from aircraft for the Atlantic, Northeast Pacific, and Central Pacific basins.
    • Adds an overview plot which shows the history of storm location fixes for each storm.
    • Adds data files of real-time structure parameters in a format that can be used for developing forecast aids for structure and intensity change.
  • Phase IV is subject to future funding support, and will likely include the following additions:
    • Gathers legacy model forecast aids for global basins
    • Implements retrospective plots of these data for historic storms.
    • Improves additional aspects of the user interface across the site.
  • Phase V is contigent on future funding support, and will likely include the following additions:
    • Computes real-time verification of model errors and biases.
    • Displays plots and/or animations of model trends: d(prog)/dt.