Severe Tropical Cyclone Courtney LIVE Tracker, Updates & Forecast | Zoom Earth (2025)

Courtney is located 611 km south-southeast of the Cocos Islands, and has tracked westward at 19km/h (10 knots) over the past 6 hours. Maximum significant wave height is 10.1meters (33feet).

Courtney is forecast to continue tracking westward for the next 12 to 24 hours, along the northern side of a subtropical ridge currently centered to the south and southwest of the cyclone.

The subtropical ridge quickly slides eastward and will be positioned to the southeast of Courtney in 36 hours, allowing the system to slowly arc onto a more southwestward track over the next 3 days.

The approach of a deep upper-level trough from the west, will erode and push the subtropical ridge to the east, allowing Courtney to round the ridge axis and turn southward after 3 days.

Another ridge quickly moves in from the west after passage of the trough, and Courtney will slow down dramatically by the end of the forecast period as it runs into the strong ridging to the south.

In terms of intensity, as outlined above, there are signals emerging in the water vapor imagery of the environment setting up for a period of further intensification in the near term. This is borne out by the HAFS-A model which shows onset of RI in 12 hours, quickly reaching a peak of 215km/h (115 knots).

The remainder of the available guidance however does not support RI but does show modest additional intensification. There is plenty of available moisture and sea surface temperatures remain moderately warm.

In around 2 days, the system will also begin to tap into a stronger poleward outflow channel, which should fuel additional intensification through at least that point and potentially as late as the next 3 days. However, in 3 days, deep-layer shear is forecast to increase sharply and dry mid-level air will begin to intrude into the core of the system, marking the onset of a steady weakening trend through the remainder of the forecast.

Deterministic track guidance is in moderate agreement over the next 3 days. GFS the GEFS mean turn the system more sharply poleward from the beginning of the forecast and mark the inside or eastern edge of the envelope.

The NAVGEM is the western outlier, taking the system on a more gradual turn through the forecast period. Cross-track spread between the outliers is 407 km at 3 days, though the remainder of the guidance is tightly packed (45 nautical miles spread) around the consensus mean.

Beyond 3 days, the guidance continues to spread out, with the GFS-GEFS combination outpacing all of the other members of the consensus and turning the system southeastward in 5 days, such that cross-track spread opens up to 870 km in 5 days.

The GEFS and ECENS ensembles show a similar spread, with roughly equal numbers of members showing a west, south and southeastward track though the ensemble mean tracks in both the ensembles show a turn to the west in around 5 days.

The JTWC track sticks within the tightly grouped pack of models over the next 3 days, then most closely tracks the ECMWF deterministic tracker thereafter.

Intensity guidance is mixed, with the HAFS-A depicting RI to a peak of 215km/h (115 knots) while the remainder of the guidance shows a maximum intensity of 165km/h (90 knots) or less.

The JTWC forecast is about 30km/h (15 knots) lower than the HAFS-A but roughly 20km/h (10 knots) higher than the SHIPS guidance and the consensus mean.

Confidence is low, and the possibility of RI cannot be discounted, which could lead to significantly higher intensity in the near-term.