The Irony of How Hurricanes Move
There’s a reason forecasters still track the giant storms by hand.
The forecast for Hurricane Irma, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, is bleak. According to guidance issued Wednesday morning by the National Hurricane Center, the storm will turn north in a day or two, slicing through the Florida keys and into the center of that state’s peninsula.
Key to these forecasts are anticipations of the storm’s track: where its eye will move over the next five days. Storm track is so critical to hurricane forecasts that people often call it the hurricane forecast, even though a full hurricane forecast will also project a storm’s future pressure, temperature, wind speed, and storm surge.
Yet a storm’s track—combined with its
