Convective storms, hurricanes and mesoscale predictability-a tribute to Doug Lilly and an optimistic look to the future

Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing into the 21st century, Doug Lilly made many significant contributions to the understanding of the predictability of mesoscale phenomena, including severe convective storms and hurricanes. I review Doug's contributions, show some recent predictions of these storms, and suggest an optimistic scenario for the future that indicates significant predictability of these phenomena over time scales long-enough to be increasingly useful to society.