(AP) -- The director of the National Hurricane Center, Bill Read, and other leading forecasters are in South Carolina for a conference on improving hurricane forecasting.
The federal Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference opens Monday in Charleston and continues through Wednesday.
The speakers include Read and other top federal officials involved in improving storm forecasting. The meeting includes other experts as well as representatives from 15 federal agencies, 12 universities and local governments.
Officials say that improving forecasting is important because more than half of the nation's population lives within 50 miles of the coastline and can be threatened by hurricanes.
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