Tropical cyclone warnings and guidance

Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres

National Hurricane Center, Miami (Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific oceans east of 140°W)

Japan Meteorological Agency, Tokyo (Western North Pacific Ocean from Malay peninsula to 180°)

India Meteorological Department, New Delhi (Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea)

Central Pacific Hurricane Center, Honolulu, Hawaii (North Pacific Ocean 140-180°W)

Météo France á La Réunion (South Indian Ocean from African coast to 90°E)

Meteorological Service, Nadi, Fiji (South Pacific Ocean east of 160°E and north of 25°S)

Met Office tropical cyclone guidance

The Met Office issues tropical cyclone guidance messages twice per day based on information from its global model forecasts. Links to these messages are provided below for information only. The guidance messages are not official tropical cyclone forecasts and therefore should not be used exclusively to make decisions which will affect life or property. Refer to forecasts issued by one of the RSMCs (above) for official forecast information.

The messages are primarily designed to give an indication of the Met Office global model's forecast track of tropical cyclones. The messages also give an explicit forecast of central pressure and maximum wind speed, but note intensity tends to be underestimated in the global model particularly for stronger tropical cyclones. Details of tropical cyclone forecast biases in the Met Office global model forecasts can be found in the Forecast Verification page.

Text guidance messages

North-west Pacific  (west of 180°)

Atlantic and north-east Pacific (east of 180°)

North Indian 

South-west Indian  (west of 90°E)

South Pacific and south-east Indian  (east of 90°E)

Tropical cyclone tracking technique

The method used to track tropical cyclones and verify forecasts in Met Office models is available in this publication:

Heming, J.T., 2017. Tropical cyclone tracking and verification techniques for Met Office numerical weather prediction models. Meteorological Applications, 24, No.1, 1-8.