How forecasters deal with 'spaghetti' of hurricane scenarios

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hurricane Irma, with its record strong winds, is lashing the Caribbean but where will it go from there?

Forecasters turn to computer simulations to try to predict a storm's path and how strong it will be.

Different computer models — often run by different governments and various agencies — use different recipes or formulas to mimic the atmosphere. They all also approximate current conditions differently.

So the resulting models look like a plate of spaghetti thrown on a map. But in that messy mass, meteorologists can get an increasingly strong idea of where a storm like Irma is heading.