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Forecast: Better warnings on hurricanes

By JEFF HARRINGTON
Published February 3, 2005

TAMPA - Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, has a new forecast.

Probability of changes to the way the center warns residents of approaching storms: close to 100 percent.

Mayfield intends to expand forecasts to include the five-day window of probability for not just the path of a hurricane but also its developing wind speed and likely size.

"Strength and the structure, or size, are very important," Mayfield said Thursday while in Tampa to speak at the Windstorm Insurance Network's annual conference.

Among the many lessons Florida garnered from last season's hurricane quartet is that the path is just one piece of the puzzle in determining a storm's potential impact. Hurricane Charley hit the Gulf Coast with a sudden increase of intensity, though its core was only 10 miles wide. Three weeks later, slow-moving Hurricane Frances slammed into the East Coast with a core five times bigger than Charley but considerably less wind speed.

During approaching hurricanes last year, meteorologists typically discussed storm size and wind speed, even if it wasn't part of the three- or five-day tracking map that became ingrained in Floridians' minds.

If adding that information makes tracking maps more complicated, that doesn't appear to bother Mayfield. He's targeting a more sophisticated, smaller audience.

Since the United States has more than 50-million coastal residents from Texas to Maine, Mayfield doesn't expect to reach them all directly. His preference is to build ties and understanding with local emergency preparedness officials instead.

Within a month, Mayfield and his fellow forecasters hope to make perhaps the most publicly sensitive forecasting decision: Do they eliminate the so-called "skinny line" now used to indicate the highest probable track of a hurricane?

Forecasts use the line surrounded by a much wider cone to show a storm's likely path.

The line came under fire in August when it showed Hurricane Charley zeroing in on Tampa Bay just hours before the quickly intensifying storm veered east into Charlotte County. The "cone of uncertainty" surrounding the line included Charlotte County, but many in harm's way were fixated on the line and figured they were in the clear.

Had Charley kept on a northeast trek into Tampa Bay and intensified as expected, "it could very well have been an Andrew - a Category 5," Mayfield said.

-- Jeff Harrington can be reached at harrington@sptimes.com or 813 226-3407.

[Last modified February 3, 2005, 19:31:02]