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.

There’s a celebration Saturday at the Lake Trafford Marina in Immokalee marking the completion of the Lake Trafford dredging project which removed 6 million cubic yards of muck from the lake’s bottom.

The project restored the health of Southwest Florida’s largest fresh water lake.
The project was spurred by a major fish kill in 1996. The fish kill was caused by a buildup of muck on the lake’s bottom – a by-product of treatments for hydrilla and other exotic aquatic plants. Eventually green algae covered the lake’s surface, shutting down photosynthesis and depleting oxygen levels.

Action taken by the Lake Trafford Restoration Task Force led to more than 15 million dollars in funding from the state to clean-up the 15 thousand acre lake by removing the muck.
Ski Oleski and his late wife Anne, owners of the Lake Trafford Marina, were major players in the task force –a coalition of government, non-profit and community members.

The muck was piped to nearby former agriculture land now owned by the South Florida Water Management District. Water Managers have not yet determined what to do with the property.
Lake Trafford has been restocked with bass with hopes it will once again be a major bass fishing destination.

-Valerie Alker

Members of the conservation organization 1000 Friends of Florida will hear a presentation Wednesday on the feasibility of building wind turbines in the Everglades Agricultural Area. WGCU’s Valerie Alker has more.

Florida’s public schools get a yearly grade based on standardized student test scores – the FCAT or Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. WGCU’s Valerie Alker recently visited two elementary schools. Both serve students where the majority qualify for free lunch and learn English as a second language. But based on FCAT scores one is an “A” school and the other a “D” school. As part of our quarterly Your Voice series this week on education, she has more in this report.

About 400 people gathered together yesterday in Ft. Myers for the annual march in memory of Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. We asked some people at the march if children today recognize the sacrifice King and others made to secure their rights. Here’s some of what we heard.

A generous gift has brought the Harlem Heights Cultural Arts & Community Center in Fort Myers closer to completion.  WGCU’s Valerie Alker reports.

U.S. Representative Tom Rooney says the attack on his colleague Gabrielle Giffords was tragic and the work of a mad man.  Rooney sits on the armed services committee with Giffords. Valerie Alker has more.

The 26th annual Everglades Coalition Conference gets underway Thursday in Weston – a planned community in Southwest Broward County. The Key Note speaker is Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.  Missing from this year’s list of speakers is Florida’s new Governor.  WGCU Valerie Alker has more.

A plan for protecting and extending wildlife corridors around the Babcock Ranch development was unveiled Tuesday.  WGCU’s Valerie Alker reports.

Cold water temperatures have drawn hundreds of manatees to the warm wateroutflow at the Florida Power and Light Plant on the Orange River in Lee
County.  And hundreds of people have turned out to the see them.  Valerie Alker reports.