I saw someone forecast that a Hurricane was going to hit Florida in a week to ten days. Can they know for sure?
No. Hurricanes and Tropical Cyclones are relatively small and complex systems. In fact, the average forecast track error five days out is currently around 300 miles. Further into the future, track errors grow even larger; for comparison, the distance from Brownsville to Houston is less than 300 miles. This is exemplified by the miscalculated tracks of Hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Ike (2008) – see images below. A big contributor to this forecast error is Chaos Theory, which is further examined on our FAQ Page.
