Hurricane forecasts are improving – but big misses are still possible

Before slamming into islands in Grenada this month, Hurricane Beryl strengthened from a tropical cyclone to a major hurricane in less than a day. The storm – the strongest on record so early in the season – killed several people and caused widespread damage on the islands. Over the next week it spun over other parts of the Caribbean, Latin America and the US Gulf Coast, where more than 300,000 homes and businesses remain without power amid a heat wave.

But Beryl’s consequences might have been…