October 29, 2012

Scary Beautiful: The Best Hurricane Sandy Maps

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My browser crashed three times to bring you this gale-force roundup of Hurricane Sandy visualizations. She looks rather lovely from here in unruffled San Francisco, but hey, unholy devastation rains down on our heads soon enough. Gaze deep into the mesmerizing belly of the beast, and stay safe out there!

NOAA’s animated gif: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was gif’ing when gif’ing wasn’t cool. This one shows Sandy’s path today from 8:15 AM to 3:15PM EST.

 

Wind Map, by data-viz artists Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg. This real-time map of hourly wind speeds across America existed before Sandy reared her election-skewering head. On most days, the map shows a cute white fur gently rippling across the country. During hurricanes, the brutal convergence of high-speed winds is downright hair-raising, as in images captured during Isaac (scroll down). See the live map here.

 

Hurricane Irene vs. Hurricane Sandy: Via Gothamist, which points out that Irene, which ranked among the top-ten priciest disasters in American history, “looks like a stuffed animal tea party compared to Sandy.” Cheers!

 

(Deep breath) The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies’ map of SSMI/SSMIS/TMI-derived Total Precipitable Water – North Atlantic: Or as I like to call it: “Ooooooooh prettttty.” 

 

WNYC’s Hurricane Sandy tracker: Which they’ve thoughtfully allowed you to steal and display all its terrifying glory on your own website, perhaps next to an inevitable photo of short-sleeved presidential disaster abatement?

 

Looking for form and function in your Sandy maps? Google’s mapping active shelters. Way to be prepared just in case, Greyhound Station of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Got more scary-beautiful Sandy maps to share? Drop links below!

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