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Why the Projected Path For Hurricanes and Tropical Storms Doesn't Always Tell the Full Story

At a Glance

The forecast path for a tropical storm or hurricane shows where the center of a storm is expected to track.
Impacts from a particular storm can be felt well outside of the forecast path.

Countless times throughout hurricane season, you'll see the familiar projected path graphic for each storm roaming the Atlantic and Pacific basins. While this graphic does provide value by showing where a hurricane or tropical storm is generally headed, sometimes it doesn't tell the whole story.

What the Projected Path Means

The forecast path, in a nutshell, shows the most likely track of a particular storm's center of circulation, or where its lowest atmospheric pressure is located.

The forecast path shows the most like path for a storm's center, but does not always show where impacts will occur.

This is important information since, in a hurricane, the eyewall near the center has the strongest winds, and is also typically where the worst storm surge inundation pushes inland.

What the forecast path does not show is that significant impacts from a tropical storm or hurricane, including flooding rainfall, storm surge, strong winds and tornadoes, can occur well outside of where this so-called cone is plotted on a map.

It should also be mentioned that the size of the forecast path is drawn so about two-thirds of the time, the center of the storm will remain in the cone. That's right – a storm's center doesn't always stay within the boundaries forecast several days in advance.

Need more proof that the forecast path doesn't reveal everything? Let's look at a couple of real examples from past years.

Why the Projected Path Doesn't Show All Impacts

June 2017 was a prime example of the forecast path not telling the full story in terms of impacts.

When Tropical Storm Cindy formed in the Gulf of Mexico on June 20, the forecast path was pointed at the border between Texas and Louisiana.

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Cindy's path was completely disjointed from where the worst weather from the tropical storm was ongoing. As the satellite image overlaid with the projected path shows below, rain and thunderstorms (orange and red shadings) extended well to the east of the path along the Gulf Coast to as far east as the Florida Panhandle.

Although Cindy's path pointed at western Louisiana and the upper Texas coast in June 2017, rain and thunderstorms extended well to the east. The yellow and red shaded area along the upper Texas and Louisiana coasts is where tropical storm watches and warnings were in effect at the time of this image, including well east of the forecast path.

That is due to the fact that Cindy was affected by strong winds in the upper atmosphere, making it a lopsided tropical storm where the worst impacts were on the right side of its circulation center.

Cindy's center eventually made landfall near the Texas/Louisiana border, but some of its heaviest rainfall, topping eight inches, was in coastal parts of Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle. In fact, Ocean Springs, Mississippi, recorded 18.74 inches of rain despite being hundreds of miles from the point of landfall.

Although Cindy wasn't a major storm surge generator, it did produce a storm surge of 1 to 4 feet along parts of the Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coastline.

Another example where the cone didn't reveal the full scope of significant impacts was during Hurricane Ike in September 2008.

Ike's path was directly into the Texas coast in 2008, but storm surge inundation occurred as far east as southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. (NOAA)

Ike was a large hurricane that tracked westward through the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall on the upper Texas coast.

Parts of Texas's Bolivar Peninsula were wiped clean of all structures from Ike's catastrophic storm surge near the point of landfall.

Hundreds of miles east from where Ike made landfall, and far from where the forecast path is drawn on the map to the right, significant storm surge inundation also occurred.

A storm surge of 3 to 6 feet was observed in coastal Mississippi, Alabama and southeastern Louisiana. Even the Florida Panhandle was affected, with Pensacola measuring a peak storm surge of just over 3 feet. These areas saw little wind and rain from Ike.

Major damage was reported on Dauphin Island, Alabama, from the storm surge, and the road to the island was closed for two days, according to the National Weather Service. In Florida, high water closed Highway 98 in Okaloosa County for two days.

In other words, the next time a tropical storm or hurricane threatens, be sure to go look beyond the forecast path to see if you'll be affected. Chances are, impacts will likely extend beyond where the cone is pointed.