Of the dozen or so Hurricane Irene tracking maps I viewed, the most informative were these:
- MSNBC and The Weather Channel
- WCTI-TV, the ABC affiliate on the North Carolina coast
- iMap (appeared on WashingtonPost.com and elsewhere)
- The New York Times
- The Associated Press
If you see other notable maps, post a link in a comment or mention @Poynter in a tweet. Four suggestions so far:
- The Google Crisis Response map of Hurricane Irene enables users to layer information, including evacuation routes, radar, power outages.
- StormPulse shows the size of the wind field and distances to cities.
- The Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s IbisEye, a comprehensive, full-screen map tracks the path, forecast, wind, barometric pressure and past storms.
- Weather Underground is an always-reliable source of maps.
Related: Coastal TV stations gear up for hurricane duty | Tracing modern hurricane coverage from Andrew to Katrina.
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- This joint project of MSNBC and The Weather Channel shows wind speed changes over time and place and allows users to control how much information they want displayed. There’s a historical tracker that displays storm paths by landfall location or strength. The Weather Channel also has a social map that shows tweets by region so you can see what people in Cape Hatteras, N.C., or Washington, D.C., are saying about Irene.
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- WCTI’s storm tracker shows Irene’s path, as well as historical storms dating back to the one that struck Galveston, Texas, in 1900. You can see all of the paths cumulatively or any of them individually. There are also animated presentations of how hurricanes form, details on the Saffir-Simpson scale and information on next year’s storm names.
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- Minimalist and easy to understand quickly, The New York Times tracking map tells anxious New Yorkers when and where the storm is likely to strike. It also offers current radar images and wind speed.
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- Several sites, including The Washington Post, used this iMap, which provides users with options to display rainfall predictions, high-resolution radar and more.
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- The AP’s tracker clearly shows the times that the Irene is forecast to be in each location. Tabs at the top add additional information, such as how to prepare for the storm and facts on the most damaging and deadliest storms in the Northeast.
