The Long Range Ocean Acoustic Propagation EXperiment (LOAPEX) carried out 75‐Hz broadband transmissions at source depths of 800 m (on the sound channel axis) and 350 m to ranges of 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 1600, 2300, and 3200 km. These transmissions were received on a vertical array capable of resolving the first 10 acoustic normal modes. The observed mode energy distributions as a function of range are strongly related to the amount of internal wave scattering occurring across range. A fundamental question is the predictability of the energy distributions from scattering theory and estimates of ocean internal wave spectra. Transport equations utilizing small angle forward scattering and the Markov approximation have been derived to describe the range evolution of cross‐mode coherence [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 126, (2009)]. The theory agrees well with Monte‐Carlo simulations suggesting that the scattering physics is well known. The LOAPEX observations are an excellent opportunity to test the predictive ability of the transport equations using real data. Issues in the model/data comparisons involve uncertainties in the internal wave spectrum and small sample sizes from LOAPEX. [Research performed while the author held a National Research Council Research Associateship Award at Naval Postgraduate School.]