Hurricane season in the Atlantic is heating up. The first major storm of 2010, Earl, has already grazed the Caribbean and could wallop the east coast of the U.S. later this week. Behind it, more tropical waves are skittering off Africa and heading for the open seas.
If you live within Earl's error cone, you should probably start paying attention to where this beast is headed. Don't know what an "error cone" is? Time to get up to speed.
Luckily, the Internet is awash in storm-tracking information. From Hurricane 101 to blow-by-blow accounts of storms from the scientists studying them, we've got what you need to beef up your summer cyclone cred.
First thing's first: for the latest info on what's going on where in Hurricaneland, bookmark hurricanes.gov, maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Hurricane Center, and check back often.
Right off the bat you get an easy-to-read, war room-style map that's updated every six hours around the clock (or more if needed) and shows all the major tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic Ocean. That little red blob in the right corner will likely grow up to become Gaston.
The map highlights the area between North America and Africa that is the prime breeding ground for deadly storms, known as Hurricane Alley (seen below).
That yellow band shows warm surface water, which does to a hurricane what spinach does to Popeye.
Back to hurricanes.gov. Scrolling down the main page, you get all of of the vital signs for all of the systems NOAA is currently tracking:
Plenty of information on every storm once it earns a name (which happens when the storm becomes a tropical storm, with sustained winds between 39 and 73 miles per hour). Click on that warnings/cone icon to get what you really want: the projected path of the storm five days out.
This here is your error cone. Several different computer models run
simulations of the same storm, and track how it behaves. Each one
usually returns a slightly different result. Forecasters then come up
with a consensus idea of where the real storm will go and how strong or
weak it will get over the next few days.
A note of caution here: hurricanes are fickle beasts. They can double back on themselves,
dissipate, or spin up into city-killers in a matter of a few hours. So
the predicted storm track, while usually accurate, is really nothing more than a best guess. If you live outside the error cone, keep your eyes and ears
open. If you live inside it, it might be time to start thinking about
an exit strategy.
After you've soaked up the first wave of NOAA goodness, click here for satellite imagery then look under the section labeled "GOES Floater Imagery – 30 minute updates." Pick a storm and the type of image you want (the Java and Flash links show the storms in motion), and you can view the storm through just about any band of the electromagnetic spectrum you like. Below are a couple of my faves:
Visible Image of Hurricane Earl
Water Vapor Image of Hurricane Earl
IR Rainbow Java of Hurricane Earl In Motion
NASA is a great resource to visit as well. They have terrific beauty shots of hurricanes via satellite (that's Earl with Tropical Storm Fiona as a baby on Aug. 30):
Hungry for still more? Click over to NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio to see satellites movies and animations showing how the guts of hurricanes work.
And if you've ever wondered about the origin of the the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale (the one that assigns hurricanes their category 1-5 rating), check out this video from one of the grand poohbahs of hurricane science, Robert Simpson:
If you want to keep even closer tabs on what's brewing out at sea, you can also sign up for email alerts from the National Hurricane Center.
So, that's all a great place to start. But if you've come this far and still want more, you can turn the geek up to 11. Behold, enough tropical imaging and data links to satisfy your hunger:
- The Navy/NRL Tropical Cyclone Page - Think NOAA's five day path projections on steroids.
- CIMSS Satellite Blog - More satellite imagery with plenty of explanations.
- National Weather Service Satellite Resource List - Pretty much what it sounds like. Lots of links to even more satellite imagery.
- SSEC Blog - This one requires a little effort, but well worth it. Blog posts from scientists on the ground (and in the air) conducting cutting-edge hurricane research as part of the PREDICT experiment. Scroll to the bottom for the latest entries. Good pics and data galore. Even some photos from the field.
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