Remembering 2025’s Losses: Neil Frank

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Ah, now you’re shaking your head BIG TIME. And, no doubt, you’re mumbling, “Oh, this is what we get instead of Val Kilmer???” Yeah. At least you expect it out of me. Let me explain, and you’ll understand why this man was so important…even if you’ve never heard of him. Dr. Neil Frank If you live in the vicinity of a place that can be hit by hurricanes in the eastern US, Dr. Neil Frank has probably saved your life. Yeah, he was that important. As the director of the National Hurricane Center, Frank developed the “cone of uncertainty” or the “cone of probability”…now the “forecast track” for hurricanes. No, they aren’t always accurate (remember when Hurricane Charley took that sudden and hard right turn into Punta Gorda in 2004?), but they have been a major improvement over what used to qualify as “hurricane forecasts” in the old days. (Back then, the joke was that hurricanes were named after women because they were as unpredictable as a woman. Yes, they said that back in the 50s.) After serving in the Air Force, Neil Frank joined the National Hurricane Center in 1961, after earning his meteorological Ph.D. at Florida State University. He became the director of the National Hurricane Center in 1974, a position he held until his retirement in 1987. In that time, he helped greatly improve the forecasting and advance warning for hurricanes. Frank also discovered the Saharan Arid Layer, the dust that blows in from the Sahara Desert. We think this is new because it’s only been recently mentioned. Oh, no. Dr. Neil found dust on the wings of his airplane doing research flights over the Caribbean Sea. This “new phenomenon” was discovered 60 years ago. In 1987 he retired from the National Hurricane Center, but he was hardly finished. He became the chief meteorologist at Houston’s television station KHOU, where he helped cover hurricanes and all other crazy weather that Houston is infamous for until he finally called it a career in 2008. No, you don’t know his name (well, you do now), but his contribution to the science of forecasting and tracking hurricanes in the Atlantic basin has saved countless lives over the years. Neil Frank Born September 11, 1931, Wellington, Kansas Died December 24, 2025, Houston, Texas (natural causes) (age 94) KHOU’s tribute to Dr. Neil: