GenCode Systems, Inc.

As Hurricane Irene makes its way up the East Coast, you may be tempted to hunker by the TV or computer with your three-day supply of batteries, water and MREs to track the storm’s progress. But you can feel free to go out and test the tensile strength of your umbrella thanks to a number of phone and iPad apps that will keep you current on Irene’s position. At the top of the list has to be Hurricane Express, a recently released 99-cent iPhone app specializing in – what else? – hurricane tracking. With information from the National Hurricane Center, the app provides lots of raw data for wonky storm chasers, but also moving radar maps, maps showing the forecasted storm track, wind maps and others as well. You can also check the curated Twitter feed from weather organizations and weather pros, or check the news feed with bulletins and videos. An upgraded version, called Hurricane, also gives historical data on past storms, which you can compare to current conditions. Usually $4, it is on sale for $2. The one real drawback is is that the maps are a little hard to see in detail on the phone. For that reason, it may be worthwhile to try Hurricane HD for the iPad ($4), which is easier to read, includes historical data, and can also show multiple storms simultaneously. Like Hurricane Express, iHurricane HD is dedicated to tracking storms, but unlike that app, iHurricane is free and runs on the iPhone and the iPad. The app shows the current and forecasted path of a storm on an interactive chart. Touch the line and you get details of the eye of the storm at that position, how far away it is from where you are and the speed with which it is approaching. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts to get news of bad weather in advance. The iHurricane app also has several predictive charts and bulletins, but those can be hard to read on the phone’s small screen. This app is best seen on the iPad. Serious weather geeks will revel in the raw radar data displayed by the $10 Radarscope app. The app shows feeds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lets you see the sweeps from specific radar stations. If you know how to spot a “hook echo” that indicates a mesocyclone – often the precursor Read More

Felicia is fading, but Bill is building. Forming early Monday, Hurricane Bill sustained winds of 90 mph which are expected to climb to 110 mph — putting it in the running to become a major hurricane in the next couple of days. The first official hurricane in the Atlantic this season, Bill is some 1000 miles east of the Lesser Antilles and is expected to track west-northwest as it builds. Residents of Bermuda should monitor its progress closely, and East Coast residents might be in for some choppy surf as a result as well. Luckily there are umpteen ways to follow the progress of the storm as it develops. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite hurricane-chasing resources here, broken into sections for web-based resources, Twitter-specific sources and mobile hurricane tracking. MyFoxHurricane has been a staple of our hurricane tracking resources for its tracking maps, video footage, satellite photos, and live chat with other site visitors. You can also get updates coming right to you from their Facebook page and Facebook app, as well as follow them on Twitter. It’s another old standby but we’d be remiss for not including Weather.com. You can get the latest news on specific storms, track them live and even upload video footage if you’re near an affected area and have something interesting to share. StormAdvisory is a nice and simple Google Maps mashup where you can pick a current storm to overlay and see its trajectory. The link provided is to the Atlantic map tracker for Hurricane Bill, but the site provides eastern and western Pacific maps as well. Another Google Maps based web app, Ibiseye lets you plot multiple storms, see various views of the data and get a display of relevant statistics including distance from the nearest cities for each path point. Intellicast offers current tracking and forecasts as well as visible and infrared satellite imagery, news, bulletins and alerts. They also have an iGoogle gadget available for start pages. The tropical weather/hurricane section of Weather Underground offers tracking maps, satellite images, public advisories, computer models and interactive Flash maps. As we noted for Hurricane Fay trackers, one of the nicest infoviz options here is the Wundermap Google Maps mashup. AccuWeather is worth mentioning again as well for being one of the few that actually make their own forecasts, whereas many other resources pull in government forecast data. Videos and weather analysis are Read More