International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS)
World Data Center for Meteorology, Asheville.

Previous IBTrACS Dataset Releases

v03r03

The latest IBTrACS version includes storm data through 2011 and new file features, in particular, shapefiles are now directly supported by the IBTrACS team. The following is a summary of changes for v03r03. Users should read the v03r03 Changelog for complete details of all changes and updates.

  • Release date: 19 July 2011
  • New features
    • New data through 2010 for all agencies
    • v03r03/ibtracs/*.nc files - New variable - wind_avg_period
    • v03r03/all/shp - shapefiles - Support of shapefiles is a new development and should be considered as a test phase as this is our first dataset release with access to shapefiles directly produced by the IBTrACS software.
      Using the IDL, shape files are created. Files are available for: individual storms, concatenated by year, concatenated by basin, or a file with everything.
    • v03r03/all/netCDF files
      • New attribute: source
      • New variables: lat_for_mapping, lon_for_mapping and basin
      • Added variable attribute "_FillValue"
    • v03r03/all/CSV files - New column/variables: lat_for_mapping, lon_for_mapping, track_type, and current basin
    • v03r03/all/CSV/basin files - Columns with all missing data (no valid reports) have been removed
    • v03r03/ibtracs/*.nc files and WMO files: netCDF, WMO, CSV, cXML - N. Atlantic, E. Pac. and C. Pac WMO source changed from HURDAT/CPHC to ATCF
  • Bug fixes
    • Data
      • Some time parameters were stored in netCDF files as floats instead of doubles. One place this impacted were in the ISO times in the CSV files. The result was wrong times (due to truncation of the floats). This is now fixed in v03r03.
      • Corrected spuriously low winds in TD9636 data (1885 and 1897 and 1945).
      • Corrected a wind speed for ATCF bal191974.dat (2 --> 25)
      • Corrected WMO tracks of spurs - Spurs containing WMO data inadvertently contained the entire WMO track instead of the just the portion that was a spur.
      • Corrected a wind speed for Wellington 1974 ALICE: 6 --> 60
    • CSV files
      • Storm names no longer have commas.
      • Corrected storm ordering.
    • HURDAT_format files
      • Corrected storm nature assignments.
      • For NHC storms, the XING, SSS and maximum storm intensity now derive directly from the original HURDAT file. For other basins, maximum storm type is now assigned based on maximum intensity as a tropical cyclone
    • WMO NetCDF file - source data was inadvertantly assigned only for the first observation. Source data is now (v03r03) assigned for each storm report.
  • Known bugs - Some early (pre 1950) storms were not correctly matched, so the number of storms in the record is artificially high. For example, SIO storms in 1901 are not matched, so ds824/td9636/reunion all track one storm, but is not identified as the same storm, so 3 separate tracks are created (due to temporal differences in the storm data).

v03r02

The only change between v03r01 and v03r02 is that the CMA/Shanghhai Typhoon Institute data was updated based on their September update.

  • Release date: 17 Sep 2010

v03r01

There are numerous changes and improvements from v02r01 to v03r01. A summary is below and more details are available in a PDF file.

  • Release date: 1 Sep 2010
  • Best track Period of Records for IBTrACS data are now (updates in bold):
    • 1906-2006 - Australian TCWCs (BoM)
    • 1848-2009 - RSMC La Reunion (MFLR)
    • 1851-2009 - RSMC Miami (HURDAT & ATCF)
    • 1990-2009 - RSMC New Delhi (IMD)
    • 1951-2009 - RSMC Tokyo (JMA)
    • 1966-2008 - RSMC Honolulu (MS Excel file and ATCF B Decks)(CPHC)
    • 1992-2009 - RSMC Nadi (FMS)
    • 1968-2009 - TCWC Wellington (NZMS)
    • 1949-2009 - CMA/STI
    • 1945-2009 - JTWC
    • 1961-2009 - HKO
    • 1960-2007 - Neumann
    • 1842-1989 - NCDC Data Set 9636
  • New data sources for this release:
    • 2006-2009 - BoM Operational data (best track data not yet available)
    • 2009-2009 - CPHC Operational data (best track data not yet available)
    • 1877-1980 - UCAR ds824.1 - Global Tropical Cyclone "Best Track" Position and Intensity Data (not using data after 1980). Warning: ds824 provides wind speed when only the storm category was known (TD, TS or HR) and lists them as 25E or 35E or 65E. IBTrACS does not yet denote wind quality in many formats. Use wind data from ds824 with caution until a future IBTrACS release accurately denotes the wind quality.
  • Changes from v02r01 which affect cyclone data:
    • Intensity percentiles are now provided. The percentiles are calculated per agency and per basin. Percentiles are compiled based on a limited period record (1970-2009).
    • Data are now provided in IBTrACS as it is provided to us. We no longer convert all observations to a 10-min wind speed.
  • Deprecated:
    • IBTrACS-ASCII format - This format is no longer produced or supported. Users of ibtracs_ascii should now use the CSV or netCDF files.
  • Known Bugs:
    • Some of the earliest storms in the South Indian Ocean (before 1890) have differing positions between La Reunion and DSI-9636.

Due to the amount of changes from version 2, the number was incremented to Version 3.
As this is the first release of version 2, it is named Release 1.


v02r01

There are numerous changes and improvements from v01cor-r01 to v02r01. A summary is below and more details are available in a PDF file.

  • Release date: 24 Jul 2009
  • Updates from best track data sources through calendar year 2008:
    • RSMC Miami (HURDAT) for North Atlantic and Eastern Pacific
    • RSMC Tokyo (JMA) Western Pacific
    • RSMC New Delhi (IMD) Northern Indian
    • CMA/STI - Western Pacific
    • JTWC - Western Pacific, Northern Indian, Southern Hemisphere
  • New data sources for this release:
    • NOAA ATCF B Deck for North Atlantic and Eastern & Central Pacific
    • NCDC DSI-9636 - Global Consolidated Tropical Cyclone Data
  • Changes from v01cor-r01 which affect cyclone data:
    • Correction to pres_minimum and pres_maximum
    • New treatment of Neumann data
    • New adjustment for CMA wind reports
    • JTWC storm type now incorporated into IBTrACS
    • Adjustment to the method for classiying storm trackss as spurs.
    • Bug fix - Correction on how BoM data was read in for storms reported in more than one type of unit
  • Changes from v01cor-r01 which do not affect cyclone data:
    • Original reports of position and intensity from each agency are now available in some formats:
      • ibtracs - Official IBTrACS Dataset netCDF format
      • ibtracs_net - IBTrACS data for all cyclones in one large file
      • ibtracs_csv - IBTrACS data in a comma separated file
    • ibtracs_csv - now has two more header lines which provide column names and units
  • Known Bugs:
    • Some of the earliest storms in the South Indian Ocean (before 1890) have differing positions between La Reunion and DSI-9636.

Due to the amount of changes from version 1, the number was incremented to Version 2.
As this is the first release of version 2, it is named Release 1.


v01cor-r01

All data are identical to v01r01, except for the corrections listed below. Check this area frequently as it may be updated without notice

  • Release date: 12/23/2008
  • Corrections which affect storm data:
    • ibtracs_tape: Winds are now 10-min winds.
  • Corrections which do not affect storm data:
    • ibtracs_net: Made CF-1.0 compliant
      • Corrected wind speed units: "kn" → "kt" and "knots" → "kt"
      • Corrected scale_factor for variables: lat, lon, pres and wind
  • Known Bugs:
    • Minimum and maximum pressure values are reversed in IBTrACS v01r01 and v01cor-r01. That is, the minimum pressure value from the available centers is reported as the maximum and vice versa. This will be corrected in a future release of IBTrACS.
    • Error in BoM intensities - For some storms reported by BoM, intensities were incorrectly ingested into IBTrACS. This only affects cyclones where BoM changed the wind speed units during a storm's lifetime. In such cases, speeds were incorrectly handled (either by not converting m/s to kt or by converting kt to m/s). This bug is present v01r01, too, and is corrected in v02r01.

v01r01

  • Release Date 12/15/2008
  • Version 1.0, Release 01
  • Bugs:
    • ibtracs_tape: Wind speeds in ibtracs_tape files (i.e., HURDAT format) were inadvertantly provided as 1-minute winds. Winds should be corrected back to 10-minute by multiplying wind speeds by 0.88.
    • ibtracs_net: files are not CF-compliant
    • These bugs are corrected in v01cor-r01 (see above)

BETA00x

  • Test versions (BETA00x) of the data set were available but are superceded by the release of IBTrACS version 1.
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