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Here's a program from our archives.Predicting the Big Onesambience: hurricaneForecasting hurricanes one at a time is tricky enough, but scientists are now looking to make long term seasonal predictions of these storms. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Chris Landsea is a meterologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division. By observing a variety of global weather and oceanic conditions, he and his colleagues can begin to tell when and where hurricanes are going to form. Landsea: When you're talking day to day forecasting, the forecasters at the Nat Hurricane Center go out one, two, three days in advance and can predict where a hurricane is going to go with a fair amount of accuracy. We also have been doing some work on seasonal forecasting of hurricanes, and for the most part, they've worked quite well. Even longer than seasonal forecasts, we're starting to perhaps have some skill at saying decade to decade. Long term forecasting involves careful observation of large-scale trends. Since one of the primary factors in hurricane formation is warm water, by keeping records of water temperatures over decades, scientists can start to see relationships. For instance, they've noticed that every 10-30 years, warm water in half of the Atlantic Ocean switches places with colder water from the other half. Well, when warmer water is in the northern Atlantic, we seem to get more hurricanes. This, plus many other factors, allows Dr. Landsea to make long-term predictions. Landsea: Our best assessment of the hurricane changes over the next 10-20 years or so are that we may be entering a regime of more active hurricane seasons, especially when you start looking at the number of the very strong ones. We've been listening to a program from our archives. If you want to hear more, check out our podcast.