“Everyone, myself included, was very surprised by how strong the impact of Wilma was in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area,” said David Nolan, chairman of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami. “The idea was it’s hitting the land over there, it’s going to weaken drastically by the time it gets to us, and that really was not the case. Wilma barely weakened at all. It was very fast-moving. That’s a very good case of where a poor understanding of decay over land led to a surprise.”