A.I. Hurricane Models Were Front and Center as Isaias Headed Toward Land
New York Times · LC · trust 48/100
Expert forecasters say the new technology is helping them understand where a storm will go.
Listen · 7:05 min Share full article A forecaster tracking a storm at the National Hurricane Center in Miami in June. Credit... Joe Raedle/Getty Images By Judson Jones
The traditional models, the ones that for decades have used physics to help experienced meteorologists understand where a hurricane is most likely to go, had been projecting a western path toward Alabama and Mississippi. But a suite of new experimental models that used artificial intelligence were pushing the forecast path farther east, toward Pensacola, Fla.
The two approaches pitted meteorology’s most seasoned experts against the industry’s buzziest new technology.
These diverging paths were in constant tension this week. Forecasters at the Hurricane Center writing their official forecast updates, which are meant to serve as the synthesis of the competing models’ guidance, noted their differences openly and discussed which they were most aligned with on each pass.
As landfall drew nearer, the traditional models crept closer and closer to the new ones, and by Friday, they were generally in agreement that landfall would most likely happen between Mobile, Ala., and just east of Pensacola, Fla. On Friday night, the storm made landfall just over 40 miles east of Pensacola, near Destin, Fla.
Jamie Rhome, the deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, said that people may assume that the experts at the Hurricane Center just look at models and pick a “winning horse” to base their forecasts on.
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