Weather Decision Technologies, Inc.

by There’s a lot of excitement on the East Coast this week. In addition to Tuesday’s earthquake, Hurricane Irene will likely make an appearance this weekend in the Carolinas and possibly elsewhere. As I write this, Hurricane Irene is wreaking havoc on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, but who knows where it will go? The National Weather Service reported Tuesday morning that the storm is moving northwest at 10 mph. By Thursday, it’s expected to strengthen into a Category 3 storm. Predicting the path of a hurricane is notoriously difficult work. Since things can change quickly, you can, in effect, become your own meteorologist by using many of the same tools the pros use. In this day and age, there are a wealth of online tools that can help you track the hurricane. If you’re one of the millions of people in the path of Hurricane Irene, you might want to avail yourself of the following resources. 1 of 12 If you want the official word on what's going on, check in to the National Weather Service's site. Though there are sites with better graphics, the NWS is a good all-around resource for all things weather-related, including oil spills and even space weather. 1 NOAA nowCOAST lets you make a customized, real-time map using NOAA data. If you're interested in variables like the sea surface temperature and precipitation estimates, this site may be for you, but for others, this may be TMI. 2 A great resource from MyFoxTampaBay and the FOX Network, MyFoxHurricane has tons of pictures and an obsessively updated blog. 3 The Weather Channel has all the stuff that the other sites have along with lots of video, of course. 4 AccuWeather has forecasts and lots of news, with just about every angle into the hurricane you can think of. 5 Ibiseye is a big map with information about the storm's track and intensity. A graphical synopsis of the storm’s winds, pressure and wind field is also available. 6 The Weather Underground has the usual features of the other sites plus the site’s trademarked “Wundermap,” on which you can choose layers of information to display. 7 Stormpulse integrates information from the National Hurricane Center to give you a real-time map of the storm's progress. 8 Are you curious about what the hurricane looks like from outer space? Check out the latest satellite pictures direct from NASA’s Earth Read More

Hurricane Earl is expected to wreak some havoc on the East Coast this Labor Day weekend. According to the the National Hurricane Center, Earl is expected “pass near the North Carolina outer banks tonight [Thursday]… and approach southeastern New England Friday night.” President Obama has declared a state of emergency for North Carolina, and FEMA has deployed teams to North Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. Whether you live near the National Hurricane Center’s official “Forecast Cone” or you’re one of the 34.4 million people who planned a trip for this weekend, you’ll want to keep an eye on Earl. Here are some resources to kickstart your tracking: Get your weather warnings and advisories right from the source on top of a color-coded map. You can also use the site to check in on where Earl is likely to hit and whether or not hurricane force winds are probable in your area. Make a customized, real-time map using NOAA data. Decide what location, information, and time you’d like to view and what data layers you’d like to activate, and nowCOAST will make a map for your request. This is a great tool for people who actually know something about weather, but it can leave the beginner hurricane tracker a bit confused. See what the hurricane looks like from outer space by taking a look at the latest satellite pictures direct from NASA’s Earth Science Office. The site offers a number of different satellite views, include infrared and water vapor readings. Very helpful for connecting with other hurricane tracking nerds, this dedicated hurricane website from MyFoxTampaBay and the FOX Network hosts a live chat in addition to its other hurricane resources. Interesting maps include the hurricane’s predicted path map, the wave height near the storm and a radar map that zooms in on the Outer Banks. The Weather Channel’s Hurricane Central allows you to view where Hurricane Earl has been and where it’s projected to go. There are also separate maps for hurricane advisories, tropical storm advisories, wind speeds and wave heights; the site also has satellite maps for specific regions. The maps aren’t as flashy as some of the other sites on this list, but they are very easy to read and understand. If you want to see what Hurricane Earl looks like – and we’re not talking radar – watch this footage taken from directly above 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