2019 HFIP R&D Activities Summary: Recent Results and Operational Implementation

This technical report describes the activities and results of the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) occurred in 2019. The major development focus in 2019 was on building the next generation Hurricane model - Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS), primarily for track and intensity predictions. This report will summarize the progress in 2019 including model developments and first year of progress made towards transforming into the next generation of HFIP. In general, the 2019 hurricane season was not as busy as 2016-2018, yet it was a very challenging year for the numerical models. There were eighteen named storms formed, of which six developed into hurricanes, with three major hurricanes, Dorian, Humberto and Lorenzo. There were 93 occurrences of Rapid Intensification (RI) events as observed in best-track data.