IBTrACS Storm Tracks: British Indian Ocean Territory Cyclone Data

This dataset tracks tropical cyclones in the British Indian Ocean Territory using data from the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS). It merges historical and recent observations from multiple agencies to provide unified storm identifiers, coordinates, and intensity metrics. The records are formatted with HXL tags for humanitarian data interoperability.

Use Cases

• Modeling storm intensity changes over time using WMO_WIND and WMO_PRES columns
• Visualizing cyclone paths through the Indian Ocean using LAT and LON coordinates
• Identifying storm frequency per year using the NUMBER and ISO_TIME fields

Strengths

• Aggregates data from multiple meteorological agencies to improve inter-agency comparisons
• Includes standardized WMO-assigned wind speed (WMO_WIND) and pressure (WMO_PRES) fields
• Provides geospatial data in GEOJSON format for immediate mapping

Limitations

• Geographic scope is restricted to the British Indian Ocean Territory, excluding broader basin context
• The specific historical range and total record count are not defined in the metadata

Provenance

Source

International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS)

Collection Method

Merged from multiple meteorological agencies

Freshness

Last updated March 2026

Geography

British Indian Ocean Territory