🌀 GFDL Vortex Tracker

Tropical cyclone tracking and diagnostics for numerical weather model output

Developed at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL)

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The GFDL Vortex Tracker identifies and analyzes tropical cyclones in numerical weather model output — diagnosing a storm's location, intensity, and wind structure over time. It has supported National Weather Service and U.S. Navy operations for more than two decades, plays a role in NOAA's Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS), and is the standard hurricane tracking tool within NOAA's Unified Forecast System (UFS).

📖 For full installation, configuration, and troubleshooting details, see the complete User's Guide.

Sample Output

Multi-model comparison — forecasts from GFS (AVNO), SHiELD (F24B), HAFS-A (HFSA), HAFS-B (HFSB), ECMWF (EMX), and T-SHiELD (T24D) overlaid for a single initialization:

Hurricane Helene (2024, AL09)

Hurricane Beryl (2024, AL02)

T-SHiELD lifecycle plots — a single model's forecasts across multiple initialization times, color-coded by init time:

Erin (2025, AL05)

Beryl (2024, AL02)

Helene (2024, AL09)

Contents

• Sample Output
• Quick Start
• Documentation
• Status

Quick Start

🖥️ If you have NOAA RDHPCS access

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/NOAA-GFDL/GFDL-VortexTracker.git
cd GFDL-VortexTracker

2. Compile (replace <system> with gaea, hera, hercules, orion, ppan, ursa, or wcoss2)

cd compile
./compiletrkr.sh <system>

3. Verify the build

cd src_code
ls exec/    # should contain the compiled executables

4. Fill out required config files

cd ../../run/init_data
# edit leadtimes.txt (required) and other files as needed
# — see the User's Guide for formatting rules

5. Choose your data format and edit the setup script

cd ../scripts/netcdf      # or ../scripts/grib
# edit setup_netcdf.sh (or setup_grib.sh) with your run's settings
# NetCDF users: also edit atmos_netcdfvars.sh

6. Execute

./setup_netcdf.sh | tee run.log

💻 If you don't have NOAA RDHPCS access

There's no fully streamlined workflow yet for non-RDHPC systems. Options currently available:

Method	Notes
Spack	Install dependencies locally using the spec list in the User's Guide as a starting point (comprehensive instructions coming soon)
Container	Pull the project's CI container image and build manually with cmake — see the User's Guide for steps

A more streamlined, user-friendly build/run workflow for non-RDHPC systems is planned for a future release.

Documentation

Resource	Description
📘 User's Guide	Full installation, configuration, running, output, and troubleshooting reference
🌪️ Genesis Detection	Details on the tracker's genesis detection (tcgen) mode
💨 Wind Radii	Details on wind radii and axisymmetric RMW diagnostics

Status

This repository is the community version of the GFDL Vortex Tracker. NOAA RDHPCS remains the primary supported platform; support for additional environments (Spack, containers) is under active development. More comprehensive technical documentation on the tracker's internals is also in progress and expected to be published soon.

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_{Maintained by the Weather and Climate Dynamics Division, NOAA/GFDL}