Experts are meeting in Miami this week reviewing advances in storm forecasting technology and ongoing research. Forecasters have gotten fairly accurate at predicting the path a storm will take – but predicting intensity remains a challenge.

National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read says Hurricane Charley, which made landfall in Charlotte County in 2004, is an example of a storm that intensified in an unpredictable manor. “I wasn’t a fulltime employee at the Hurricane Center but I was detailed over here for Charley and we all had that knot in the pit of our stomach about not being able to forecast that in advance, just observing it.”

Charley strengthened from a category 2 to a category 4 hurricane in less than two hours and made landfall about 100 miles south of Tampa Bay - where forecasters initially said it was headed.

The information exchange between federal and military officials, emergency managers and researchers concludes Thursday with recommendations to improve predictions for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season which begins June 1.