Quantcast
Why does it seem that hurricanes are... | Almanac.com

Why does it seem that hurricanes are...

Print Friendly and PDF
Why does it seem that hurricanes are still mostly unpredictable, even with today’s technology?
Answer
The science of predicting tropical storms and hurricanes has come a long way just since the 1960s, but some things about these storms do remain unpredictable. Scientists can predict landfall but cannot yet pinpoint how and when a hurricane will strengthen and weaken. It’s the hurricane’s eye wall that makes this tricky. The area just around the eye of the storm carries the fiercest winds, and scientists can’t get in there with instruments. Instead, they are working on better ways to measure the volume of warm seawater, which is responsible for giving life to hurricanes, to determine how much it will fuel the next storm to come along.