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Environment

Hurricane forecasts are improving – but big misses are still possible

Scientists have made major strides in predicting rapidly intensifying storms over the past decade, but even the best tech can't keep up as climate change fuels rapidly intensifying storms

By James Dinneen

16 July 2024

2XG090B This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 4:16 p.m. EDT on Friday, July 5, 2024, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Beryl over Mexico?s Yucatan Peninsula. Texas officials urged coastal residents to prepare as the storm moves toward the Gulf of Mexico. (NOAA via AP)

Hurricane Beryl over Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula on 5 July

Associated Press / Alamy

Before slamming into islands in Grenada this month, Hurricane Beryl strengthened from a tropical cyclone to a major hurricane in less than a day. The storm – the strongest on record so early in the season – killed several people and caused widespread damage on the islands. Over the next week it spun over other parts of the Caribbean, Latin America and the US Gulf Coast, where more than 300,000 homes and businesses remain without power amid a heat wave.

But Beryl’s consequences might have been…

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