That Hurricane Matthew forecast you keep seeing may not mean what you think

As Hurricane Matthew churns from Haiti toward Cuba and the Bahamas, millions along the Southeast U.S. coast are preparing for the storm. As of midday Tuesday, the entire East Coast from Miami to Boston was within the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) "cone of uncertainty" storm track forecast. With supermarket shelves already going bare in Florida, many are basing crucial storm decisions, such as whether to stay near the shore or head inland, in large part on forecast graphics like the cone of uncertainty map. Forecasters at the NHC produce this map multiple times each day based on new information from computer models, weather observations and other sources. But published, peer-reviewed research, along with an informal poll of Mashable newsroom colleagues, indicates that it's unlikely do itmost people truly understand what the cone of uncertainty graphic actually shows.