Hurricane Chief: Funds, Research Can Improve Hurricane Forecasting

June 26, 2008

The National Hurricane Center's director says his organization would need tens of millions of dollars over the next decade for research to reduce substantially the errors in forecasting the intensity of hurricanes.

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In an interview with The Associated Press on June 24, Bill Read said reducing errors by half would be a costly and time-consuming venture.

Intensity forecasts are much harder for meteorologists than predictions of where the hurricane will track.

Read also talked about the sensitive issue of a link between global warming and hurricanes. Read acknowledged that while people who model storms largely suggest global warming is real and going to get worse, they differ on the possible outcomes for hurricanes.