The Future of Hurricane Prediction

H urricanes are strong tropical storms with maximum surface winds greater than 64 meters per second that originate from equatorial oceans. The eye of a hurricane is usually 30 to 50 kilometers wide, but the storm’s overall extent might exceed 600 km or more. The damaging winds, torrential rains, storm surges, and flooding caused by hurricanes make them one of the deadliest and costliest natural disasters. Given how destructive hurricanes can be to both human lives and property, the demand for faster and more precise warnings is ever increasing; to provide these, we need more accurate forecast guidance with longer lead times. Over the past few decades, we’ve made significant progress in short-range predictions of tropical cyclones. This is most notable in track forecasts: today’s average 72-hour forecast position is as accurate as a 36-hour track forecast was 15 years ago. However, there’s little improvement in our ability to predict hurricane intensity in terms of maximum surface wind speed during