This story, originally published on August 30, 2018, has been updated.
On September 10, 2017, Hurricane Irma made landfall in South Florida. One of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, Irma left behind a trail of destruction from the Caribbean to the Florida Keys. But thanks to improvements in weather prediction models and data from NOAA satellites, Irma's 5-day track forecasts were remarkably successful, giving communities adequate time to prepare for the storm's impacts.