After Charley, a Better Crystal Ball

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It sat silently off the southwest coast of Florida last Friday - a vast pool of unusually warm seawater as well suited to a salt- water spa as to the open subtropical ocean. Meanwhile, high above, a filament of high-speed air had peeled away from its mother flow, the jet stream.

For hurricane Charley, heading north after clearing Cuba, meeting this patch of ocean was like turbocharging a locomotive. Fueled by the unusually warm water below and the right wind environment aloft, Charley stunned forecasters as it grew from a worrisome storm to a major hurricane shortly before landfall, packing sustained winds of more than 145 miles an hour.

"It was like a runaway …