Fergie's Tech Blog

Various Wilma Models Confound Forecasters

An AP newswire article by Ron Word, via ABC News, reports that:

In the time Max Mayfield has been at the National Hurricane Center, the forecasting of killer storms has gone from flying kites to satellites and computer models to help pinpoint the ferocity and landfall of storms. But Wilma has confounded the experts.

Simply put, models take information from satellites, aircraft flights, ships, buoys, water temperatures, winds at different levels and other sources to try to determine where a hurricane will go and how strong it will get.

Using those models, forecasters predicted Wilma would meander a few days in the Gulf of Mexico and then race across southwest Florida or the Keys. Its slow speed has somewhat confounded them. While forecasters believe Wilma will be picked up by the jet stream and zoom across Florida, it hasn't happened as quickly as the models have predicted.

"It's going to take a little patience," Mayfield said.

posted by Fergie @ 10/20/2005 07:25:00 PM