Hurricane Matthew Visualization | Hacker News Reader

Hurricane Matthew Visualization

ventusky.com

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This looks like a van gogh painting if you zoom all the way out. Regardless, great work! This is really important.

The Starry Night! It really does.

https://vimeo.com/36466564

I've never used Ventusky before. Wow. I am very impressed.

Panning out creates a Starry Night effect. :)

I'm a little confused by the swirling pattern. It doesn't represent the eye, it seems to merely by a pattern to denote the highest wind speeds, not the spiral of a hurricane.

The reason I say this is in the lower right there are three models in the lower right and the center of the pattern moves around when you select each one. Also, with one of the options, it puts the center on the coast at Fort Pierce as I write this, however it's off the coast of Palm Beach and hasn't made landfall anywhere.

I also notice that the size of the eye changes depending on your zoom level. There are a number of ways you could explain that, but it's not clear what's actually going on.

Another option: https://www.windytv.com/?25.314,-76.003,6

same backend, slightly different design?

https://earth.nullschool.net/

This is the oldest of this kind of map that I know of. It includes source on the About page.

This one seems much more efficient, at least on Safari. In contrast, the OP link pegs CPU to 100%.

It's using your laptop fan to simulate the sounds of the hurricane.

It is worth noting that the inventors of this particular type of visualization for wind data were Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg (former IBM, now Google, as far as I can remember). A pity that they are rarely mentioned.

http://hint.fm/wind/

also, https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/ort...

source: https://github.com/cambecc/earth

Interesting stuff.

I wish you could change the color map, though; jet is Considered Harmful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoljeRJ3lU

Link to the paper cited by the video regarding effectiveness of colormaps: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8667395/evaluati...

The paper doesn't seem to support the idea that rainbow visualization is harmful for 2D visualizations.

Diagram: http://i.imgur.com/E7aNLuM.png

We observed no statistically significant effects of color scheme on any of the participants' subjective responses.

There's a giant center of rotation parked over the North Atlantic, just off Greenland. The wind speeds are only moderate but it's huge.

The size may be due to the map projection.

I like the front passing through the middle of the US just west of Chicago. Wind direction changes abruptly along that one.

It's actually pretty large even looking at an orthographic projection:

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/ort...

You can see it form if you go back a couple of hours. I'm assuming it's some form of extratropical cyclone?

Projection should play no role here -- the data is visualized on a globe.

http://www.livescience.com/7215-greenland-mysterious-winds-t...

One thing that strikes me is how far apart the weather models are on a thing that's happening RIGHT NOW.

Also, https://www.windytv.com/?29.334,-81.156,6 gives way more information (eg, ocean swell / wave height) and forecast for the next five days.

a bit cleaner: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/ort...

I presume it works off the same source data.

For what it's worth, here's the thread about that visualization tool: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12415488

Are there any public online webcams in the area?

Here is a list of beach cams. Most don't seem to be operational this morning. http://www.mybeachcams.com/florida/east-central/

Had light showers in Tampa. Thankfully it isn't expected to reach us.

A natural calamity makes us realize that we aren't really in control.

Feeling it here in Sarasota, FL, mildly. It's forecast to do a strange loop, heading north and spiraling back to approximately where it presently is, but a bit N/E. It will be interesting if it does. And Nicole is right on its tail.

Watching my trees here in Tampa, the kids school getting canceled and having to change our plans for the day is about the biggest impact we've felt here.

Ohh and the roads were wide open when we went out for breakfast.

Little more than grey skies and a little sea-side chop here today. A relative in the St Augustine area, however, has reported loss of the entire garden, vicious winds and sustained power outage. Trees were expected to come down, as of a few hours ago.

"Wide open" roads in Tampa is difficult to imagine.

Something seems off...Isnt the eye of the storm supposed to be calm, it shows high speeds at the center.

You have to click "Wind Speed" to see that simulated. By default it seems to be "Wind Gusts".

Wow, glad I took my trip out of Port Canaveral last week!

This really is a fantastic visualization, thanks.

Is it heading up to Virginia? Wondering if AWS us-east problems might be on the cards

Nope. Latest projected path from the National Hurricane Center has it hitting the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina before heading back out to sea:

http://i.imgur.com/4zGAx1R.gif

And then it is likely to (weakened) head back over the Bahamas and possibly southern Florida.

Wouldn't they select an essentially flood proof location?

(the economic factors that drive settlement in flood prone regions don't really apply to data centers, so I would expect it to be accounted for even by much less sophisticated operations)

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