Source: The Weather Channel
As wild fires continue to burn throughout the Pacific Northwest, fire crews aren’t the only ones working overtime. Meteorologists and data scientists whose job it is to forecast the weather are having one of their busiest years too, especially working in today’s new big data environment.
Terabytes of data come to meteorologists every day from sources such as ultra-high resolution satellite images, radar and sensors. Tools including new software, super computers and even augmented reality (AR) are helping to turn all that numerical data into stunning visuals – visuals that can help everyone stay safer and up to date on the weather.
Source: The Weather Channel
In May, The Weather Channel took its weather visuals to a whole new level when it started using AR almost daily right in their TV studios to simulate weather events such as hail, lightning, even a tornado.
The ‘data engine’ behind The Weather Channel
Ian Miller leads the team of engineers at The Weather Channel called Weather Content Solutions or its ‘data engine.’ “The mass amount of data we have coming in now is staggering.” Miller points out that a new satellite recently launched by Japan over Asia, for instance, is giving them 84 times the amount of data (42 gigabytes) a day than they were getting before it launched.
Source: The Weather Channel
He says his team’s job is all about visualizing data in ways that match people’s observations. Going beyond basic blue and red ‘blobs’ to representing the physics of the weather, especially major weather events like El Niño, expected to hit many parts of the world hard this winter.
This very recent video from NOAA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NCAR, shows a comparison between the 1997 to ’98 record breaking El Niño to the current warming near the equator in the Pacific Ocean. The yellow and orange areas are water that is warmer than average. The similarities between now and then are hard to miss.
Visualization comparing the last record-breaking El Nino to what could come this year.
Source: NCAR
“We’re moving a lot more into weather being a social science.”
– Andy Horvitz with the National Weather Service
Andy Horvitz is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS), also a part of NOAA. Says Horvitz, “We’re moving a lot more into weather being a social science because it’s all about how people interpret our communications.” Last spring, Horvitz says the NWS started using all new weather forecasting icons to convey information more visually. “We first put out a survey to ask what people wanted and got back 1,000s of comments. There’s huge interest from people in wanting to see more visual representation of the weather.”
Below is a forecast from Florida during the current hurricane season, featuring the icons’ new features, such as split images. Instead of portraying a 24-hour period as entirely rainy, it shows how rain tapers off from day into night or if a thunderstorm is moving in.
Arrows show if there’s at least a 30 percent increase or decrease in weather conditions during a 6- to 12-hour period. A ‘nowcast’ is included in the upper left. When you click on the ‘i’, you see a list of any weather warnings or hazards in effect. In Arcadia, it was a flood watch.
Source: NOAA’s National Weather Service
The recent Seattle forecast below also portrays road conditions. Says Horvitz, “The whole idea is to explain what the impacts of weather are so you can protect your life and your property.”
Source: NOAA’s National Weather Service
In case you’d like to see you own weather in real-time for the coming week, here is a link directly to the National Weather Service (just type in your location and away you go!)
Weather Infographics
Weather Underground is also known for its many weather visuals, including its popular infographics, and is owned by The Weather Company, which also owns The Weather Channel. Designers work hand in hand with on staff meteorologists to explain more the ‘science’ of weather versus forecasting it.
Says designer Jerimiah Brown, “We translate heavy scientific terms and info into visuals that people can understand. Not everyone is a scientist. So we’re not dumbing things down, but finding creative ways to make content more fun. Humor is a great teaching tool.”
Source: Weather Underground infographics on the California drought.
What’s next?
Fellow designer Dan Fein gives us a glimpse into how we may soon see even more innovative weather visuals. “Numbers are numbers. We have the quantitative stuff figured out. The qualitative part is sometimes just as or more interesting. We can now chart the progress of a storm just by tracking the tweets. Relatively soon, we’ll be able to map storms with Twitter almost like we do now using radar.”
If so, weather will indeed become more of a social science. Tell us about your favorite places to go for weather visualizations and any examples you’d like to share.
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