Coming Storms.

This article reports that a new computer model that analyzes summer-wind patterns can predict whether the United States will suffer a damaging hurricane season, according to the scientists who developed the tool. Eight of the 10 costliest U.S. calamities were hurricanes, says Mark A. Saunders, an atmospheric physicist at University College London in Dorking, England. The new computer model, developed by Saunders and his colleague Adam S. Lea, considers the speed and direction of winds at altitudes between 750 meters and 7,500 m above sea level during the month of July over six broad regions of the eastern Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, and the central United States. The patterns of those winds, which influence the paths of weather systems and steer Atlantic storms either toward land or out to sea, typically persist throughout the hurricane season, says Saunders.