Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren vocal bomb here. As. The Atlantic hurricane season
Speaker 1: began on June one nine and runs through November thirtieth,
Speaker 1: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association predicted a range of
Speaker 1: between nine and fifteen storms that would be big enough
Speaker 1: to merit names. That is, storms with winds of thirty
Speaker 1: nine miles per hour about sixty three kilometers per hour
Speaker 1: or higher. Four to eight of these were predicted to
Speaker 1: become hurricanes, and two to four of those were forecast
Speaker 1: to become major hurricanes in category three, four, or five.
Speaker 1: That is what sustained winds of a hundred and eleven
Speaker 1: miles per hour or a hundred and seventy nine kilometers
Speaker 1: per hour or higher. Those categories are from the SOFIA
Speaker 1: Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which explains the severity of damage
Speaker 1: that can be expected from each hurricane category based on
Speaker 1: the wind's ability to collapse roofs, walls, trees, and power
Speaker 1: infrastructure at different beads. To aid in forecasting efforts, meteorologists
Speaker 1: utilize visualizations called spaghetti models, also sometimes known as spahetti plots.
Speaker 1: To a lay person, spaghetti models look like well, a
Speaker 1: bunch of spaghetti strands thrown against a wall. In reality, though,
Speaker 1: spahetti plots are a method of combining information from a
Speaker 1: variety of predictive models onto one map to come up
Speaker 1: with a picture of a hurricanes potential track. We spoke
Speaker 1: with Daniel J. Leathers, a professor and director of the
Speaker 1: Meteorology and Climatology Program at the University of Delaware. He
Speaker 1: also serves as Delaware State Climatologist and as a co
Speaker 1: director of the Delaware Environmental Observing System. He explained each
Speaker 1: model that's used to predict hurricane paths and in many
Speaker 1: cases intensity can have that path plotted on a map.
Speaker 1: All of spaghetti plot does is take the results from
Speaker 1: all of these models and plot all of them on
Speaker 1: the same map. To understand why spaghetti plots are important,
Speaker 1: you have to understand that there are a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of different modeling methods that are used to track hurricanes,
Speaker 1: and like presidential election polls, for example, they don't all
Speaker 1: produce the same results. The object of creating such a map,
Speaker 1: according to Leathers, is to see the extent to which
Speaker 1: all the different models agree. He said, oh, when the
Speaker 1: paths are very similar to one another. This means that
Speaker 1: all the models are agreeing to a large extent about
Speaker 1: the future path of the storm. In contrast, if the
Speaker 1: individual plots are all over the place quote, then that
Speaker 1: says that there is great uncertainty in the models about
Speaker 1: where the storm will move in the future. Spetty plots
Speaker 1: are a way of seeing all of the model results
Speaker 1: at one time and not relying on just one model
Speaker 1: for a forecast. They are very helpful in conveying the
Speaker 1: certainty or uncertainty of a forecast. The lines on the
Speaker 1: chart indicate the different paths projected by the various models,
Speaker 1: which have varying degrees of reliability. Leathers said. The models
Speaker 1: include dynamical models using the physics of the atmosp fear,
Speaker 1: statistical models, and in some cases analog models to predict
Speaker 1: the coming movement of an individual storm. These models come
Speaker 1: from meteorological organizations from all across the globe of places
Speaker 1: like the National Weather Service, the British met Office, universities
Speaker 1: and so on. Some models are certainly thought to be
Speaker 1: better than others, they are very different in how they
Speaker 1: make predictions and in what they are best at. So
Speaker 1: what if any useful information can lay people get from
Speaker 1: looking at spaghetti plots, A Lether's explains the most useful
Speaker 1: information is the certainty of the forecast. Again, if all
Speaker 1: the paths are very similar, the forecast certainty is high.
Speaker 1: If the paths are very different, the certainty is low.
Speaker 1: If there's a great spread in the forecast tracks, then
Speaker 1: that shows that the models are not doing a great
Speaker 1: job as a suite in figuring out where this particular
Speaker 1: storm is likely to move in the future. Some hurricane
Speaker 1: models can be run in a few seconds on an
Speaker 1: ordinary computer, while others may require hows of calculation by
Speaker 1: a supercomputer. Spaghetti models have changed subtly over the years
Speaker 1: as computing power has improved and researchers have tweaked their
Speaker 1: models based on the great volumes of data we humans
Speaker 1: have been able to gather thanks to computers. Leathers says
Speaker 1: the approach has evolved as more and more hurricane models
Speaker 1: are run in real time, and as technology has allowed
Speaker 1: for putting these models together into a spaghetti plot in
Speaker 1: a timely manner. He predicts that the number of models
Speaker 1: and their sophistication is likely to continue to grow in
Speaker 1: the years ahead. Today's episode were written by Patrick Jake
Speaker 1: Hager and produced by Tyler. Playing brain Stuff is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in
Speaker 1: this and lots of other sustained topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. And for more podcasts for
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.