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September 11th, 2008

Keeping an eye on storms

Hurricane season is here (and going on until Nov. 30), and North Carolina seems to be in the path of all the storms in the Atlantic.

It’s important to know where storms like Hanna and Ike (and whoever else) are headed and how severe they will be, so keep an eye on them. If you can’t be glued to the TV screen, then watch these Web sites, which all offer similar but varying ways to track the storms.

A part of the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center is the first to update any public advisories on hurricanes and tropical storms in both the Atlantic and Pacific. It offers a variety of satellite maps to view and track the storms. You can even add the NHC’s updates to your RSS feed.

Weather.com is the web version of the popular television network, the Weather Channel. Perhaps the most popular day-to-day weather site, Weather.com has articles, videos, storm trackers and interactive maps of all active storms. It also has a countdown to the end of hurricane season.

Because WRAL serves the Triangle, this site is bound to give you the most localized, personalized alerts. It lists weather warnings, watches and advisories for all North Carolina counties. WRAL also offers a storm tracker and live Doppler radar of local counties. The site continues storm coverage with slideshows and video of any severe weather damage.

If you want to play with maps of hurricanes, try Stormpulse. The interface mimics that of Google Maps, so you can pan the screen and zoom in and out. You can interact with the data by clicking on points along the hurricane paths, and it will show you the distance from the storm to different cities on the map. Stormpulse’s hurricane records date back until 1851, in case you want to see the paths of previous hurricanes like Hugo or Katrina.

It’s easier than ever to keep an eye on the storm — and during hurricane season, it’s important to stay in the know.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 12:43 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Science & Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.