With the Atlantic hurricane center just weeks away, hurricane forecasters are preparing to launch a new suite of tools with a looming budget cut threatening to slash research efforts.
For the upcoming season, the National Hurricane Center will be testing a forecast cone that ups the certainty of track predictions from just under 70% to 90%. A new mobile-friendly forecast page will make it easier to read information on phones. And forecasts, as last year's lethal Hurricane Melissa demonstrated, continue to dramatically improve, National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said Wednesday.
"These are forecasts that we simply were not able to make more than five or ten years ago," Brennan said during the Governor's Hurricane Conference in West Palm Beach.
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Despite buzz over AI-generated forecasts, Brennan said hurricane center forecasters remained more accurate as Jamaica braced for Melissa.
"We were able to predict Melissa's rapid intensification with exceptionally long lead times, and this is really a highlight of the progress we've made in forecasting rapid intensification over the past decade," he said. "These forecasts are not perfect, but we are now better able to anticipate this rapid strengthening."
The continued improvements come as the center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration struggle to maintain progress. The White House has again proposed slashing NOAA's budget by $1 billion and eliminating the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which conducts hurricane and atmospheric research. That could potentially eliminate the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab on Virginia Key.
Meanwhile the National Center for Atmospheric Administration, or NCAR, is battling the administration in court to prevent it from dismantling the center.
" When you lose people, you lose that institutional memory," said atmospheric scientist Ben Kirtman, University of Miami Rosenstiel dean. "They say, "Oh, no, Ben, we tried that 10 years ago. It didn't work. Don't bother." Right? So we're losing that."
For nearly a decade, Kirtman oversaw a one of NOAA's university-based cooperative institutes at Rosenstiel that helped improve forecasts.
"If you spin down an activity, you can do that very quickly. You know, stop. We're stopping," said Kirtman, who also sits on the board that governs the NCAR. "But to spin it back up can take years."
Most early seasonal forecasts predict a deepening El Niño will produce another slow season. But Brennan warned fewer storms don't mean less danger.
Last year's below average season, the first in nine years, produced only five hurricanes. But three reached fierce Category 5 status — the most since the vicious 2005 season that produced Katrina, Wilma, Rita and Emily. As it slammed Jamaica, Melissa tied the record for the strongest hurricane at landfall with 185 mph winds.
"As we hear a lot about what the 2026 hurricane season might look like with El Niño coming, that risk is gonna be there," he said, "regardless of what you hear about any seasonal forecast activity."
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