Year ahead prediction of US landfalling hurricane numbers: the optimal combination of long and short baselines

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Annual levels of US landfalling hurricane activity averaged over the last 11 years (1995-2005) are higher than those averaged over the previous 95 years (1900-1994). How, then, should we best predict hurricane activity rates for next year? Based on the assumption that the higher rates will continue we use an optimal combination of averages over the long and short time-periods to produce a prediction that minimises MSE.