Hurricane Tracker 101

There is nothing like a natural disaster to get Geospatial geeks excited. According to twitter there is a storm blowing in. In the spirit of GeoComradery, I thought I’d list out a couple options to track.

  1. Classic GIS Map: PDF format for easy printing on that HP 4MV printer. (no Internet link because it’s sitting on your desktop)
  2. Classic Esri Website: The Esri Disaster Response Hurricane tracker is full of cloudy ArcGIS Online goodness. It is a clear attempt to put as much information in front of you so can’t read it. Others refer to this option as an autostereogram.
  3. The Stamen Solution”: Stamen as always produces beautiful looking maps that are always taken at night. These are handy when you want to look at the map and not keep your significant other up from the light of your iPad. With the Esri map above, you’d have to build a pillow fort to keep the light on your side of the bed or couch.
  4. The official government website: If I woke from a 20 year coma and this was the first map I saw, it would be hard to convince me I had been asleep for more than 5 minutes.
  5. The hipster map: Rule #1, pick a projection that people aren’t used to seeing and make it beautiful enough so they don’t complain they can’t figure out where the Atlantic Ocean is.
  6. Google’s Map: Hmmm, guess not. Update: Here is the Google Crisis Map. The YouTube logos look classy!
  7. Update 2 - The Government Map With Good Data, but Bad UI: Nobody knows hurricanes better than NOAA and their map has lots of history and up to the minute data. Too bad it is in a flex viewer so I can’t view it on my iPhone or iPad while running for my life. That said, download button on the top is full of awesome.

This is the only Isaac I want to see at my door!


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Date
August 27, 2012