•The DTC conducted extensive tests of the Community HWRF model in order to designate its third HWRF Reference Configuration (dubbed HD12). Over 750 HWRF runs for the Eastern North Pacific and North Atlantic basins for the 2012 seasons were conducted, demonstrating that a robust functionally similar operational environment is functional at the DTC.

    •Results show that mean track errors increase linearly with time from near zero at initialization to approximately 270 nm and 150 nm in the North Atlantic and Eastern North Pacific basins, respectively.

    •Mean cross-track errors show mixed results. For the Atlantic basin the mean cross-track errors are negative for the first 3 days, indicating that the forecast storm is usually to the left of the observed one. For the Eastern North Pacific, the mean cross-track errors are positive for the first day and then turn negative for the fourth day. Along-track errors indicate that the storm is too slow for the 3rd day when compared to observations in the Eastern North Pacific basin. For the Atlantic basin, the storm is too slow for all the lead times.

    •While the average track errors are smaller in the Eastern North Pacific basin, the cross-track errors are larger in this basin than in the North Atlantic one. This indicates that the Eastern North Pacific track errors have more cross-track bias (too much to the left). The Atlantic along-track bias is larger than Eastern North Pacific (movement too slow).

    •The mean of the absolute intensity errors displays a sharp growth in the first 12 h of forecast, from near 2 to 6 kt. After that the errors grow more slowly and reach near 20 kt in the North Atlantic and near 15 kt in the Eastern North Pacific basin.

    •The mean of the intensity errors (bias) indicates that in the Eastern North Pacific basin the model underpredicts intensity throughout the forecast period. For the Atlantic basin, the model underestimates intensity at the initial time but overpredicts intensity for the rest of the forecast period.

    •The forecast 64-kt radii has a positive bias for most of the forecast lead times on both basins, indicating the core of the storm is consistently larger than the observed one. Conversely, the radii for the 34-kt threshold tend to be smaller than the observed one.

    •Model output files have been archived and are available to the community for future studies. Forecast maps and verification graphics, along with this report and additional information are available in the DTC website.