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ECMWF is augmenting the tropical cyclone (TC) track products that it makes available for dissemination in BUFR format. We now include the tracks of tropical cyclones that develop (i.e. undergo genesis) during the forecast integrations (the 'Genesis category'), as a supplement to the tracks that we already provide for existing tropical cyclones, i.e. where there is an official observation TC report at the initial time of the forecast time (the 'Pre-existing category'). The track products are provided for both high-resolution (HRES) and ensemble (ENS) forecasts out to 10 days ahead.

ECMWF's TC track products contain the following variables: time, position (latitude/longitude in degrees), central pressure (hPa), intensity (i.e. maximum 10m wind speed in m/s in a 750 x 750km box centred on the TC location) and position of that 10m wind speed maximum (latitude/longitude). These are now provided for every tropical cyclone identified and tracked in every ENS forecast, and in HRES.

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This change will be introduced with the 12 UTC cycle on Tuesday 10 November 2015.

Naming convention for the 'Genesis category' of tropical cyclones

A "Storm Identifier"  label is assigned to each separate TC feature identified in a forecast. This ID is formed by a number (between 70 and 99) and a letter that indicates which basin the cyclone belongs to (among eight basins). Strictly the letter shows the basin in which genesis occurred, so if a TC transfers from one basin into another, the identifier of the original basin will be retained. The range of numbers used was chosen to distinguish from real TC IDs (official reports) at any time. The basins are identified by the following suffixes (letters) which are appended to the end of each TC number:

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