Tropical Strength Predictions

We have seen, both directly from NHS weathermen, and from articles over the years, that it seems like the "final frontier" in hurricane predictions are intensity predictions. Over the years, they have become relatively outstanding at getting the path right, 2-3 days out, and pretty good 4-5 days out.

But it seems like they still don't have the tools/understanding to predict strength.

For example, in today's Cristobal discussion:

quote:

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It should still be noted, however, that there is some uncertainty as to the strength of Cristobal when it reaches the northern Gulf of Mexico coast due to the limitations of forecasting tropical cyclone intensity change.

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So, I am sure many smart people are working on how to improve this. I am curious, what are they doing? Do we need more computing power to run better models? More research? Better satelites?

I didn't want to gum up the current weather thread with my question. But maybe some of our weather experts can chime in here.