Monday 27 August 2012

Mapping Tropical Storm / Hurricane Isaac

A map slide show last year tracked dust and wind storms in Kuwait. I simply refocused it on the Gulf of Mexico to track the tropical storm Isaac, predicted to gain hurricane strength by land fall in Louisiana. It shows NOAA's cloud cover, wind direction and alert areas detailed here. [Please be patient as this map may take a while to load.]

NOAA AIRS NRT from Andrew's Arcgis.com
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That simple DIY map using one web service was meant to show how easy it is to grab public data. Disaster response maps are of course a lot more sophisticated and show the variety of ways found to mash up the various datasets the public will need to stay apprised of the storm-cum-hurricane. Here are but two examples, of which the twitterverse and blogosphere will soon be replete (you can start with @cageyjames' catalog):

Hurricane Isaac Web Map overview - Esri Disaster Response
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 Topical Storm Isaac - Google Crisis Response

On a local historic footnote, my friend George Dailey mused:
Very weird that it might hit the New Orleans area on the 7th anniversary of Katrina. While not as powerful, it also carries a name associated with the unnamed 1900 hurricane that hit Galveston -- Isaac’s storm.

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