The article “How math helped forecast Hurricane Sandy – the mathematics of predicting a hurricane’s path“, authored by John Norbury (Oxford) and Ian Roulstone, has been published this month in Scientific American.   Many early forecasts for Hurricane Sandy last year predicted that the system would fizzle over the Atlantic. Yet a model developed by researchers at the European Center for Medium-Range Forecasts (ECMWF) in Reading showed a more alarming scenario: the storm would instead turn west to threaten the Eastern Seaboard. The model’s refined predictions pinpointed the hurricane’s landfall around the New Jersey area in time to allow residents to seek higher ground. The key to the more accurate forecast involved mathematical mastery of the storm’s chaotic behaviour.  The full details can be found in the published article.