Martin Hurricane Fair

[Cookiely]

Martin hurricane fair kicks off with warnings
By Eve Samples

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, June 04, 2005

STUART — The director of the National Hurricane Center is mostly joking when he says he knows what he wants engraved on his tombstone:

"Don't focus on the skinny black line."

But the point Max Mayfield is making is serious.

The often imprecise line — used on forecast maps to project hurricanes' paths — shouldn't determine how residents react to an approaching storm, Mayfield said Friday during his first visit to Martin County since last year's storms.

Residents should have a ready-made hurricane plan regardless of where a storm is predicted to strike, he said.

"Why wait until the last minute and go through all that stress?" said Mayfield, who lives in Miami and began his forecasting career in 1970 while in the Air Force.

So what's in store for the Treasure Coast and the rest of the state this hurricane season?

Mayfield said he couldn't predict how the infamous Bermuda High — the ridge of high pressure that helped steer Frances and Jeanne ashore last year — will affect this season.

Nor did he think there is a strong connection between a rainy May and the intensity of hurricane season, as some forecasters have recently said.

What he does put faith in are the long-range forecasts calling for busier-than-usual seasons for the next 10 to 20 years.

"So folks, we're in this active period — like it or not," he said to about several dozen residents gathered inside Martin County High School. "It just makes very good sense to go ahead and prepare."

The meteorologist — whose visit kicks off Martin County's 11th annual Hurricane Fair this weekend — cited a Mason-Dixon poll that indicated about 30 percent of coastal residents don't have a hurricane plan.

Though the Treasure Coast endured direct hits from Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne last year, residents shouldn't get too comfortable thinking it won't happen again, Mayfield warned.

He showed the audience dramatic photographs of damage Hurricane Ivan inflicted on Florida's Panhandle in September as evidence that future storms may bring stronger winds and storm surges.

"It is so difficult to get people to understand the power of the storm surge," Mayfield said. "And I have a real fear that some people in here think they have seen the worst."

Frances and Jeanne had relatively ragged cores, unlike more compact Charley and Ivan, which struck Florida's west coast last season. Had Frances or Jeanne been better formed, the damage would have been more severe, Mayfield said.

While forecasting technology has become more sophisticated during the past 15 years, Mayfield said the eye wall of a hurricane remains difficult to predict.

That means a storm could quickly strengthen without much notice.

"No one that I know of knows how to forecast those changes in the core of a hurricane," he said.