Hurricane forecasters urge preparedness

MIAMI, March 19 (UPI) -- A team of Florida hurricane forecasters has spent four days in Mexico pleading with officials and residents to prepare for storm season.

"We have to remember that more than 300,000 people have been killed by tropical systems in this hemisphere since Christopher Columbus arrived," Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County, told Mexican forecasters and emergency managers. "We still have the potential for large loss of life if we all don't work together."

The visit came ahead of a U.S. hurricane conference to take place next week.

The six-month tropical weather season begins June 1 in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean