Posted on: Wednesday, May 16, 2001

Hurricane forecasts can be blown to bits

Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON — Forecasters were more than a little surprised last year when a tropical storm named Keith rapidly grew into a full-blown Category 4 hurricane as it bore down on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.

Computer models did not predict the rapid strengthening nor did the procedure accurately depict what the fickle storm would do next.

Hurricane track forecasting has seen significant improvements over the past decade, but there are still some blind spots.

That's a message National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield has been delivering in the weeks leading up to the start of the 2001 hurricane season, which runs June 1 through Nov. 30.

Lingering off the coastal islands of Belize, Keith puffed itself up until its maximum sustained winds reached 138 mph on Oct. 1.

The following day, the storm weakened some but moved little, leading meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center to broadcast a set of hurricane track forecasts that would prove to be significantly incorrect.

The dozen or so computer and numerical models that forecasters use to predict hurricane movement had Keith all over the Gulf of Mexico for the next 72 hours. One model showed Keith sprinting toward the Florida panhandle on a line similar to that taken by Hurricane Opal in 1995. Others showed it threatening New Orleans and parts of Texas.

Ultimately, Keith crossed the Yucatan, strengthened over open water and curved ashore 20 miles north of Tampico, Mexico, on Oct. 5.

"None of our models performed particularly well," said Jack Beven, a National Hurricane Center forecaster.