U.K. Scientists Claim 'Breakthrough' Hurricane Model

By Michael Ha

NU Online News Service, April 22, 3:32 p.m. EDT?A London-based research group has developed what it describes as a "major breakthrough" computer model that vastly improves the ability to forecast the strength of hurricane activity striking the U.S. mainland.[@@]

The new forecasting model by Tropical Storm Risk, led by the Benfield Hazard Research Center at University College London, was announced in the science journal Nature.

According to Dr. Mark Saunders at University College London, who spearheaded the project, the answer to a better storm forecast?to borrow singer Bob Dylan's lyrics?is blowin in the wind.

Dr. Saunders said his model tracks anomalies in wind patterns over North America, the Eastern Pacific and North Atlantic in the month of July to predict the potential wind energy of U.S. land-falling hurricanes for the August-to-October hurricane season.

He explained that wind anomalies change from year to year, and if the winds in July are pointing more toward North America, then hurricanes formed in the North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico tend to move toward North America more during the hurricane season.

Conversely, if winds blow less strongly toward North America in July, the opposite happens during the hurricane season: the storms tend to be stirred away from North America.

"As each North Atlantic hurricane season approaches, the common question for those who own or insure property near the coast is: how likely is it that one or more hurricanes will make landfall," he told National Underwriter. "This Tropical Storm Risk model is the first to offer a level of forecast precision to be practically useful."

Dr. Saunders said that he had correctly predicted the unusually active 2004 hurricane season using his technique. The model was also 74 percent accurate, when applied retrospectively to years between 1950 and 2003, on whether U.S. hurricane losses would be higher or lower than normal.

Using the new model, Dr. Saunders has forecast another active Atlantic hurricane season in 2005, with four tropical storm strikes predicted for the United States, of which two will be hurricanes. Tropical Storm Risk will issue a more detailed forecast for the U.S. hurricane land-falling activity on Aug. 4.

Special Reports /

U.K. Scientists Claim 'Breakthrough' Hurricane Model

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