---
id: "atcf_storm_id"
kind: "datatype"
status: "draft"
is_pii: false
categories: ["environment", "science"]
langs: ["common"]
quality: 80
url: "https://registry.apicrafter.io/datatype/atcf_storm_id"
---

# ATCF tropical cyclone identifier (`atcf_storm_id`)

> **Draft.** Draft records have not been reviewed yet and may be incomplete or wrong; do not treat them as authoritative for legal or compliance decisions.

Identifier of a tropical cyclone in the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting system used by the US National Hurricane Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, and in HURDAT2 and IBTrACS. It has eight characters, the basin (AL Atlantic, EP eastern Pacific, CP central Pacific, WP western Pacific, IO north Indian Ocean, SH southern hemisphere, SL south Atlantic), the cyclone number of the season and the year, for example AL122005 for Hurricane Katrina. Numbers 80 to 99 are training storms and invests, southern hemisphere storms use the season year, and ATCF file names write the code in lower case.

- Personal data (PII): no
- Categories: Environment (protected areas, biodiversity, water, weather, emissions, waste) (environment), Scientific (science)
- Countries: global
- Languages: Common to most languages (common)
- Classification: identifier

## Detection

Regular expression (Python `re`):

```
^(?:AL|EP|CP|WP|IO|SH|SL)(?:0[1-9]|[1-9][0-9])(?:18[5-9][0-9]|19[0-9]{2}|20[0-9]{2})$
```

## Examples

- `AL122005` — Hurricane Katrina (2005); HURDAT2 Atlantic
- `AL092005` — Hurricane Irene (2005); HURDAT2 Atlantic
- `EP202015` — Hurricane Patricia (2015); HURDAT2 northeast Pacific
- `WP312013` — Typhoon Haiyan (2013); IBTrACS
- `AL011851` — First storm of the 1851 Atlantic season; HURDAT2 Atlantic
- `31W` (invalid example) — JTWC number of Typhoon Haiyan, without the basin prefix and the year
- `AL002005` (invalid example) — Cyclone number 00 is not used

## Translations

- ru: Идентификатор тропического циклона ATCF: Идентификатор тропического циклона в системе ATCF Национального центра ураганов и JTWC (США) — код бассейна, номер циклона в сезоне и год, например AL122005.

## Sources

- doc: <https://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/atcf/README>
- doc: <https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/hurdat/hurdat2-format-nov2019.pdf>

## Quality

Score 80/100. Missing: mapping (Wikidata, Schema.org, ...), detector coverage.

JSON: <https://registry.apicrafter.io/api/v1/datatypes/atcf_storm_id.json> · Edit: <https://github.com/apicrafter/metacrafter-registry/edit/main/data/datatypes/any/environment/atcf_storm_id.yaml>