With the hurricane season in full swing, MSNBC has debuted the Hurricane Tracker just in time to follow Ike. It’s one of two new applications that follow tropical storms and hurricanes.
Government Executive reports that the tracker was developed by Stamen, a San Francisco design firm.
The tool is useful because federal officials can now use it to gain insight on the storm paths among other things. Regular users can also use the tool to see the progression of the storm from its birth to its demise.
Another site, StormPulse, also keeps track of the storms. The difference between this tool and MSNBC’s Hurricane Tracker, is that StormPulse only shows the current position and its projected path. It does not show an animated path like Hurricane Tracker. It does show you the strength of the storm with boxes. You can also embed StormPulse on your own site with the programmers’ permission.
StormPulse has been used by various newspapers including The Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
With several storms barreling down the Atlantic, TripAdvisor did a quick poll last week, asking if the current storms or hurricanes would affect any of their readers’ upcoming travel plans?. Out of 1,053 respondents, 21 percent said “yes.”
