Hurricane Preparedness Center

Historical Hurricane Tracks from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Historical Hurricane Tracks tool provides an interactive map for users to search through tropical cyclone data in the Eastern North Pacific and Atlantic Basins.

The primary historical data allows searches for specific storm tracks, so hurricane history buffs can sift through data as far back as the 19th century, with additional links to the 10 deadliest and costliest hurricanes in U.S. history.

Site features include:

• Search by ZIP Code, latitude and longitude coordinates, city or state, or geographic region.
• Coastal Population Tool allows users to search through coastal population data and compare with hurricane strikes for coastal counties across the U.S.
• Tropical Cyclone Reports provides access to storm reports written by none other than actual hurricane specialists at the National Hurricane Center.
• Query Expediter Tool is fantastic for bloggers and the Web savvy in us all, allowing users to build custom Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that can be embedded in your blog or site that direct users to a custom mapping application with specific storm tracks pre displayed.

History repeats, as they say, and considering you can search through data from the deadliest hurricanes as far back as 1851, it's certainly a useful tool for learning about past precedence and storm data.

El Nino's Impacts NOAA's August 2009 Updated Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook

With Hurricane Bill steaming westward on an uncertain course, one thing on the minds of many has been "What about the rest of the season?"

On August 6, NOAA released its updated forecast for 2009. As you may have guessed, while a "normal" hurricanes season was orginally forecast, however, because the season has started so late, the number of storms has been reduced to 7-11 named storms, 3-6 hurricanes, and 1-2 major hurricanes. Most of this activity is expected during the upcoming peak months (August-October) of the hurricane season.

This comes about because a warming of the Pacific waters, or "El Nino", during June and is already producing increased wind shear in the Main hurricane Development Region (MDR) which encompasses the tropical North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea  The wind shear makes it more difficult for hurricanes to form or remain organized.  This may account for the late start of the season as Atlantic temperatures were too cool to provide enough storm energy to overcome the wind shear.

So how does the El Nino affect future weather for Winter 2009-2010?

Historically, this has usually meant wet winters in Florida, Texas, and the southwest with little precipitation in the Ohio Valley.  Tempuratures, meanwhile are warm from Washington State through upper midwest, with cool temperatures extending from Texas northeastwards through New York.

Is it time to start rethinking this year's ski trip?

Hurricane Bill: Tuesday A.M. Update

"Bill became the first hurricane of the season on Monday morning. It continued to strengthen throughout the day and reached category 2 strength Monday evening, currently with sustained winds near 100 miles per hour. There is a chance Hurricane Bill could go through rapid intensification today, and is currently expected to become a major hurricane in the next day or so.

The current forecast track for Bill keeps it north of the Lesser Antilles, heading in the general direction of Bermuda, or between Bermuda and the North Carolina Outer Banks, over the weekend.

Regardless of whether Bill makes landfall, rough surf is expected along the beaches of the Northern Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola by midweek, the Bahamas by late week, and the East Coast of the U.S. by the weekend into early next week. Dangerous rip currents can be expected once swells generated by Bill reach coastal areas."

Read Mark Avery's article at Weather.com

Track Hurricane Bill

Claudette bearing down on Florida; Will Ana and Bill become Hurricane Ana and Hurricane Bill?

After a relatively slow hurricane season thus far, there's been a flurry of activity lately with 3 storms making waves in the Atlantic and Gulf. Tropical Storm Claudette is closing in on Florida panhandle. Watch live storm updates here.

Tropical Storms Ana and Bill are also looming...

"Tropical Storm Ana (40 mile per hour winds) and is located 240 miles east of Dominica in the northern Leeward Islands.

Ana is struggling in a dry environment at this time as it races westward. The forecast is for Ana to slightly strengthen as it heads toward the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico and then toward Hispaniola.

In the short term, expect increased rain and some gusty winds over portions of the northeast Caribbean Islands through Monday.

Tropical storm watches are in effect for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the rest of the northern Leeward Islands. This means tropical storm conditions are possible in the watch area within 36 hours.

The intensity farther out in time will be dictated by the interaction with the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Regardless, these areas need to monitor the progress of Tropical Storms Ana closely.

Tropical Storm Bill became the 2nd named storm of the Atlantic Hurricane Season on Saturday, forming in the Eastern Atlantic east of Tropical Storm Ana. Bill is currently located about 1555 miles east of the Lesser Antilles, and has top sustained winds near 60 miles per hour.

Tropical Storm Bill is forecast to move west-northwest through the open tropical Atlantic over the next few days while steadily gaining strength. If fact, Bill may be a major hurricane (category three or higher) by midweek.

The current forecast track calls for Bill to miss the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico to the north. However, these areas should still monitor this systems progress over the next several days due to the uncertainty in forecasts farther out in time."

from Chris Dolce, Lead Meteorologist at The Weather Channel - The read entire article at http://www.weather.com/newscenter/hurricanecentral/update/index.html?from=news_top_links

Track Ana. Track Bill.

Will Ana and Bill become Hurricane Ana and Hurricane Bill? Be prepared today.

Guillermo Classifed as a Hurricane

At 2:00 AM PDT today, The National Hurricane Center classified the storm Guillermo as hurricane, at about 1100 miles west-southwest of the tip of baja California. At the time of its classification, Hurricane Guillermo had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.

The NHC provides detailed maps, charts, win probabilities and more, so if you're interested in tracking the course and status of the storm, check the links below:

Maps/Charts

Forecast/Advisory