A seminar on the unpredictable nature of hurricanes, which will include a presentation of data collected during Hurricane Gonzalo, is set to go ahead later this month in London.

The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) is giving its Risk Prediction Initiative workshop for member companies on June 16 and 17.

It comes in the wake of an international summit on hurricanes and climate change to be in Crete from June 9 to 14.

Mark Guishard, programme manager for the Risk Prediction Initiative, will present findings made by BIOS’s glider observations taken during last year’s direct hit from Gonzalo.

The data gathered by BIOS scientist Ruth Curry show how the atmosphere and the ocean transfer heat and energy during hurricanes.

Hurricanes are famously difficult to forecast. London’s workshop, entitled “Where have all the US landfalling hurricanes gone?”, questions whether their patterns have shifted recently.

The state of Florida, for instance, was struck by seven hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, but has seen none since — which has implications for the premiums and risk models of insurers and reinsurers.

The Atlantic hurricane season began on Monday and runs to the end of November.