the models we use to forecast the weather are facing a new test climate change in a rapidly warming world they’re struggling to keep up with how the weather is evolving hurricane Milton is a case in point while they forecast that the storm would intensify they failed to grasp how severe Milton would get over a very short time period the storm spun up from a category 1 hurricane into a category 5 Monster by feeding off the abnormally warm Waters in the Gulf of Mexico hurricanes are hard to forecast because they’re small relative to the entire atmosphere model simulate and the bands of rain and winds are smaller still in a bit to improve forecast accuracy the national weather servic is gathering new sources of data that includes data from private companies that are doing everything from deploying booies to Ocean fairing drones to weather balloons all with the goal of capturing more information now the challenge is seeing if that data and the models that rely on it can keep up with a changing climate given the threat that storms like Milton pose lives are literally depending on it