IBTrACS: Global Tropical Cyclone Best-Track Data

The International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) project provides a unified global collection of tropical cyclones. It merges recent and historical data from multiple agencies to create a publicly available best-track dataset. The dataset is hosted on HDX and was last updated on 2026-04-21.

Use Cases

• Analyzing storm track paths and positions based on latitude and longitude fields.
• Comparing storm intensity and characteristics across different ocean basins based on the BASIN and SUBBASIN fields.
• Studying the temporal evolution of storms using the ISO_TIME observation timestamps.
• Investigating relationships between maximum sustained wind speed (WMO_WIND) and minimum central pressure (WMO_PRES).

Strengths

• Data is described as the most complete global collection of tropical cyclones available.
• Merges data from multiple agencies to improve inter-agency comparisons.
• Includes key storm attributes like position, wind speed, pressure, and basin classification.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) project, aggregated by HDX.

Collection Method

Merges tropical cyclone data from multiple responsible WMO agencies.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-21 11:56:29.181968; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, with specific basin and sub-basin classifications.