Popular Hurricane Forecaster Loses Funding, May Shelve Predictions
William Gray, a scientist who has issued a closely read hurricane forecast every year for more than a decade, may be forced out of the prediction business for lack of funding.
“I can’t get money,” said Gray, a professor at Colorado State University.
Gray, 69, used to get funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation and the insurance industry.
The insurance industry stopped paying when his federally funded research became available for free on the Internet. NOAA has rejected his requests for funding for the last six years. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also rejected funding.
His only support now comes from the NSF, $145,000, which after overhead and other research amounts to about $50,000, he said. He said he needs $400,000 a year to keep his forecasts coming.
Gray said he believes his research has been rejected because he has publicly questioned the validity of sophisticated computer programs--called numeric models--that are becoming the dominant method of forecasting. The programs use mathematical formulas to forecast the weather.
Gray uses computer programs but primarily bases his predictions on what he calls the cultural method, or study of the past.
A March 30 rejection letter from NOAA said Gray’s grant proposal “lacks sufficient discussion of methodology to permit an effective evaluation of the approach.”
Tim Tomastik of NOAA said the decisions to reject Gray’s proposals were made by a peer review committee of scientists, not the agency.
Gray’s forecasts are read closely along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
His forecasts have been close to the mark during the 16 years he made predictions, with 1997 the major exception. He predicted seven hurricanes with three of them major; only three occurred.
“More times than not he is on the right side of climatology,” said Max Mayfield, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, Fla.
For the 1999 season, Gray has predicted 14 named storms and nine hurricanes, four of them major.
