CyTRACK: An open-source and user-friendly python toolbox for detecting and tracking cyclones

Abstract

This work introduces CyTRACK (Cyclone TRACKing framework), a new open-source, comprehensive and user-friendly Python toolbox for detecting and tracking cyclones in model and reanalysis datasets. The kernel of CyTRACK is based on detecting critical cyclone centres in the mean sea level pressure field at a single time slice, which are then filtered following several threshold parameters. This paper also compares ten years of CyTRACK outputs forced with the ERA5 reanalysis against best-track archives and available cyclones track datasets. The results reveal that CyTRACK can capture the inter-annual (year to year) and intra annual (seasonal cycle) variability of cyclone frequency, life cycle characteristics and spatial distribution of track densities. Largest differences were observed in the annual and seasonal frequency. In summary, CyTRACK provides a user-friendly framework for sensitivity analysis of several free parameters used to perform the tracking, and it is useful for case or climatological studies of cyclone features