ORLANDO, Fla. — As Hurricane Matthew gained strength in its march toward Florida, and forecasts left uncertain where or if it would make landfall, Gov. Rick Scott warned Floridians that it “will kill you.”

The storm was blamed for 13 deaths in the state, but much greater devastation was averted as it stayed offshore, passing along the east coast on Oct. 7.

On that same day, a University of Washington professor reacted to Matthew forecasts by noting in his blog: “It is time for US weather modeling to become world class again.”

Cliff Mass, who teaches atmospheric sciences, was profiled Oct. 17 in the New York Times Magazine as “the most widely recognized critic of weather forecasting in the United States.”

With the hurricane season coming to a close this week, Mass spoke via email about Matthew and the trouble with predicting hurricanes.

Q: How would you grade Hurricane Matthew forecasts?

A: B for track and D for intensity predictions.

Q: Matthew kind of blew up into a monster. Tell us more about the D for intensity.

A: Forecasting the track of hurricanes is relatively easy, since hurricane track is determined by the large scale winds and atmospheric structure, something we can forecast very well.

But intensity forecasts require predicting the details inside of the hurricane, and that is very difficult for a number of reasons. First, one needs very high resolution and to get all the processes right. Second, there may be an inherent limit to the predictability of intensity.

My colleagues that do this kind of work suggest that skillful intensity forecasts may not be possible more than two to four days out. That said, there is much we can do to push the envelope of hurricane intensity forecasts, and some groups (such as Fuqing Zhang at Penn State) appear to provide more skillful intensity forecasts than the National Weather Service.

A major problem for the NWS has been the poor track forecasts of their high resolution hurricane prediction system.

Q: Forecast troubles or not, we Floridians were pretty nervous about Matthew.

A: They should have been watchful. This was a major storm and the impacts would depend critically on the storm track. If the storm had moved 100 miles west, there would have been substantial damage along the Florida coast.

Q: What do you mean it’s time for U.S. modeling to become world class again?

A: Operational global weather prediction at the National Weather Service has fallen behind that of others, such as the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting and the UK Meteorological Office.

Our computer models are inferior to others and the National Weather Service has not tapped the extraordinary research community in the U.S. Furthermore, our operational hurricane modeling is far less than it could be.

(The National Hurricane Center declined to respond to Mass’ comments. But the issue isn’t new. Last year, Scientific American published the article: “Are Europeans Better Than Americans at Forecasting Storms?”)

Q: What specific steps for improvement should be taken?

A: Major issues are this:

1. U.S. numerical weather prediction research and development in the U.S. government is disorganized and divided. A complete reorganization is needed.

2. NOAA/NWS must tap the knowledge and capabilities of the large U.S. weather research community.

3. NOAA/NWS needs far more computer resources to do state of science numerical weather prediction.

Q: What is your background?

A: BS Physics Cornell, Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington.

Q: What’s the personality of your blog and how has it been received?

A: Don’t understand the personality business. My blog is read by 15,000-20,000 folks each day.

(Note: If you simply want to know if it’s going to rain today in Florida, don’t go to Cliff Mass Weather Blog. It’s an opinionated, wide-ranging and technical lecture on why and how its going to rain, snow, blow or other.

It focuses often on Northwest weather. But posts veer to topics such as climate change, hurricane forecasting and even the presidential election.

A recent post asks: “Can the insights of the highly experienced and technically sophisticated weather prediction community assist our embattled colleagues in political polling and forecasting? Perhaps.” A lengthy explanation follows.)

Q: Here’s a curve ball: Are Floridians in for more frequent and powerful hurricanes because of rising global temperature and changing climate?

A: Regarding the future, global warming will raise sea level, which will make the impacts of hurricanes on Florida much more problematic. And the strongest hurricanes may intensify under global warming.