The mission of the National Hurricane Center in Miami is to save lives, mitigate property loss and improve economic efficiency through the issuance of watches, warnings, forecasts, and analyses of hazardous tropical weather. This responsibility would not be possible without the aid of the myriad of new technological advances for observing tropical cyclones over the past several decades. Conventional methods used in forecasting tropical cyclones include those related to tropical cyclone genesis, intensity, track/motion, rainfall, and storm surge/wave action along the coast.

The SHIPS model is the only empirical, statistical model available to forecast tropical cyclone intensity change. The scheme utilizes variables related to the local environment as well as statistical information from other cases to predict future intensity oscillations. Success in track forecasting has been made possible through the use of global models with intricate numerical schemes and have allowed tropical cyclone position forecasts to drastically improve. These models are supplemented with data collected by the NOAA G-4 and Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft using GPS sondes to probe the environment around the tropical cyclone. Additional information is gathered through remote sensing devices such as the SSM/I, TRMM, and AMSU and are available up to a few times a day. Tropical cyclone rainfall is forecast by using a Quantitative Precipitation (QPF) model which is dependent on storm motion. Finally, storm surge flooding can be accurately forecast by the SLOSH model which depicts various coastal areas within the Atlantic basin under different tropical cyclone conditions. The challenge of hurricane forecasting is to put all these data and analyses together along with other factors which are not well-understood (e.g., trough interaction, inner core structure and dynamics, warm/cold ocean eddies) to produce a response which will positively affect lives.