Hurricanes and Tropical Storms: Using the Glow Effect in Studio

By: Jonni Walker

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) just reported a potentially ‘Extremely active’ hurricane season possible for the Atlantic Basin. Understanding the historic tracks of hurricanes and tropical storms reveals the parts of the world that may be affected by them in the future.

Historic storm tracks are a good starting point to understand which parts of the world are most affected. Using historic Hurricane track data from NOAA we can map in Studio. Downloading the data creating the glow effect using the firefly technique to achieve this effect. Here is a look at the intensity of wind speed by track — created in Studio:

And then a zoom in on tracks across the Atlantic and the US, and tracks across the Pacific. Mapping staggeringly destructive forces from hurricanes and tropical storms help organizations report and analyse data to save lives and minimise potential damage.

I’m writing an upcoming blog post to see further use cases, how organisations are using Mapbox to report Hurricanes and how Mapbox can help to analyse this data. Hurricane or Tropical Storm tracks are not the only way that these natural events can affect people and a landscape. Loss of life, damage to property by storm surges, flooding and many other factors are associated with these events and these will not be covered in this first part of the series. This post doesn’t show forecasting of potential Hurricane/Tropical storm paths. Understanding and presenting forecasts can be very tricky! Please read this article by Alberto Cairo et al. Consideration is needed when forecasting potential Hurricane or Tropical Storm tracks.

Further parts of the series will look at other methods and use cases for mapping this kind of data and how Mapbox and its new features can illustrate potential impacts on those people and countries. This will include a webinar with Allan Walker and myself in the near future.

Jonni Walker is a Cartographer at Mapbox based in the UK. He’s doing a series of posts this summer on his cartography called “Painting with Mapbox Studio”. He’ll share the principles used in his stunning designs and some tips for using the techniques within your projects.

Maps feature data from Mapbox and OpenStreetMap and their data partners.