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Overview Storms Dashboard Storm Search Storm Points Points of Interest Hurricane Hotspots Synopsis Dashboard News Dashboard Homes Dashboard Florida Shelters Alerts Dashboard E-mail Alerts Satellite Imagery Weather Stations Widget Gadget Discussion Group History Thanks To...

OVERVIEW

There are five tabs at the top of the IBISEYE map. Click on any of those tabs to open a dashboard to help navigate the site. They are, from left to right:

Storms: This dashboard allows you to select, find and display historic hurricanes and current season tropical storms.

Risk/Storm Synopsis: This dashboard shows detailed information about storms, including cities hit.

News Dashboard This dashboard shows the latest hurricane and tropical weather related news and displays official tropical weather statements.

Homes: This dashboard allows you to find and report property damage in Florida and the Southeast. You can also subscribe to weather alerts that are linked to a particular address.

Alerts: This dashboard shows the latest weather alerts, weather station and buoy data, and satellite and Doppler radar imagery.

STORMS DASHBOARD TAB

The Storms dashboard is designed to quickly select and map historic hurricanes and the current season’s tropical activity.

Note: The IBISEYE system automatically displays the closet active storm to the Southeast when the site loads, including the “cone of probability,” showing where the storm may head in the coming days.

There is collapsible menu on the left side organized by century, then decade, then season. Under each season is a list of all storms and the states hit by each storm.

Note: Before 1950 storms were not named, and are referred to by a storm number. Between 1950 and 1952, the storms were given military-style names. After 1952 storms were given human names.

Up to 10 storms can be selected and shown on the map at once. Click on a storm and it is added to the “Selected Storms” list in the middle of the dashboard. All selected storms are automatically displayed on the map.

For each storm in the selected list, a checkbox adds and removes the path from the map; this will not remove it from the selected storms list. A radio button adds a storm’s windfield to the map.  Only one storm’s windfield can be displayed on the map at a time.

Clicking on “Remove Storm” will delete the storm from the selected list and the map.

The “View this Storm” link closes the dashboard and shows the entire storm on the map. Clicking on “Link to this storm” will open a new window with a link to that particular storm and an option to e-mail the storm link.

Storm Search

This final section of the Storms dashboard allows you to find hurricanes that hit a particular area.

Enter a city and state and the 25 closest storms to have hit that area are listed; click on a storm and it is added to selected storms list and is displayed on the map.

The search can be refined by changing the range of years or the storm name.

Storm Points (displayed on the map)

Every storm path is divided into points. These are the locations of the storm at a particular date and time. The wind field, if selected, is an approximation of how the winds are distributed in four quadrants around the eye. Hurricanes are rarely symmetrical though the northeast quadrant is typically the widest and strongest.

Hover over a storm point and a synopsis of the storm at that point will appear; click on it and the following information will fill a popup window:

• The date and time
• The latitude and longitude of the point
• The wind speed (in miles per hour)
• The pressure (in millibars)
• The storm category (L: Low Pressure, TD: Tropical Depression, TS: Tropical Storm, and Hurricane Category: H1-H5)
• The heading (an ordinal telling which direction the storm is moving)
• The bearing (the actual degrees the storm is moving)
• Forward speed (in miles per hour – how fast the storm is moving on its heading)
• Hurricane Radius: can be observed, estimated or forecast. Most storms within the past 20 years have observed wind fields, older storms will have been estimated. This is the maximum distance (in miles) that hurricane force winds extend from the eye. Forecast points of active storms will also have estimates of wind field size.
• Tropical Radius: The radius of tropical storm force winds.
• The nearest cities to the storm point.

There is also the option to turn on the wind field information for the storm within the popup if the wind field is not already turned on.

Most 2007 storms also include a link that allows you to toggle on and off a satellite image of the storm at that point.

For active storms, various storm models used in predicting a storm’s path can be selected.

Source: Current Tropical storm season related data provided by Weather Underground Weather Underground

Historic hurricane data provided by Mark DeMaria and John Knaff, NOAA/NESDIS (Source note: between 1988 and 2006, wind field sizes were based on observations; between 1851 and 1987, wind field sizes were estimated based on the strength of the storm, latitude and several other variables.)

Points of Interest (displayed on the map)

The points of interest are the weather patterns stretching from the African coast to the Southeast seaboard and into the Gulf of Mexico that forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are watching. This information comes from the National Hurricane Center’s Atlantic tropical discussion, which is updated every six hours.

If there are no active storms these weather patterns are automatically shown on the map.

The IBISEYE system takes this information from the hurricane center’s tropical discussion and divides the weather patterns into points of interest (yellow), areas of interest (green) and tropical waves (blue.)

Early in the hurricane season, storms usually grow out of large clusters of thunderstorms in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. As the summer progresses and the Atlantic warms, tropical waves coming off West Africa are more likely to develop into storms.

Clicking on any of the points of interest will show a brief slice of text pulled from the discussion. The text in the bubble attempts to be related to the actual point, but this is imperfect. There is, however, a link in each point’s popup window to open the full discussion.

Hurricane Hotspots

Southeastern coastal counties are hit by a hurricane, on average, once every 22 years. For some communities, however, storms come more often — far more often.

A 2006 Herald-Tribune analysis of known storms since 1851 identified three hotspots based on the number of times the eye of a hurricane came within 50 miles of cities and towns. They get hit once every five to seven years. Those places — southeast Florida, North Carolina and the Louisiana bayou — get hit so often storms have become woven into the community fabric and local lore.

Live on the bayou long enough or on the barrier islands of North Carolina and you’re sure to have a story about when the “big one” hit.  The series can be read at The Herald Tribune's Hurricane Hotspots section.

In the STORMS DASHBOARD, select the hotspots checkbox to see the hotspots.  

RISK/STORM SYNOPSIS DASHBOARD TAB

The risk/storm synopsis dashboard attempts to gauge the relative severity of a storm based on its known or estimated characteristics.

The IBISEYE system estimates how many current cities and towns will be or have been exposed to each storm’s hurricane-force winds. The population and household totals are all based on the 2000 census and can help to gauge the relative severity of storm.

Note: Prior to 1988, the size of the wind fields is estimated; after that the wind field sizes are based on official observations.

For hurricanes that hit Florida, a dynamic report will appear that calculates the value and number of properties that would have been exposed to hurricane winds had the storm hit in 2006.

The number and values of properties is based on the 2006 Florida property records and, again, this is designed to help gauge the relative severity of storms.

The report is broken down by all property; properties in coastal and inland counties; and by properties in each county.

The report can be further refined by selecting the type of property: Agricultural, commercial or industrial, or residential. The results will then be broken by total (full) value, land value and building value.

For active storms, the report is recalculated every time the hurricane center updates its position, usually every three hours.

Sources: Current Tropical storm season related data provided by Weather Underground Weather Underground

Historic hurricane data provided by Mark DeMaria and John Knaff, NOAA/NESDIS (Source note: between 1988 and 2006, wind field sizes were based on observations; between 1851 and 1987, wind field sizes were estimated based on the strength of the storm, latitude and several other variables.)

Property values and locations compiled from Florida Department of Revenue and various property appraisers in the state.

Cities and towns data compiled from the 2000 U.S. Census and various Census Bureau maps.

NEWS DASHBOARD TAB

IBISEYE pulls tropical weather related news stories from various wire services, the New York Times and the Herald-Tribune.

In addition, the feed includes the latest entries from Jeff Masters’ Weather Underground tropical online journal and the National Hurricane Center’s Atlantic Outlook and Atlantic Discussion. When a storm is active there are a number of other regularly updated NHC bulletins, including special statements and wind probabilities related to specific storms, that appear in the feed.

An IBISEYE RSS news feed can be found at:

http://www.ibiseye.com/RSS/newsfeeds.aspx?feed=news

HOMES DASHBOARD TAB

The Homes dashboard is used for finding and reporting property damage in Florida and the Southeast and for subscribing to weather alerts tied to a particular address or spot on the map.

The IBISEYE system works best in Florida, but almost all of the functionality, including damage reporting and e-mail alerts, works in all Southeastern states.

The first column in the dashboard contains an address search. Enter an address and the map will automatically zoom to that point. If that address is in Florida, a list of the properties in that neighborhood will be listed in the center column. Close the dashboard and the map will center on the address; click on a property in the dashboard and it will center on the selected property.

After the dashboard is closed, click on a property icon to see details about that building, including its assessed value, and to report or read damage reports.

The IBISEYE damage reporting system gathers information from visitors to the site that includes the status of various utilities and detailed information about flood and wind damage.

For people who evacuated or own property in an area hit by a storm, it is an easy way to check how the area is doing without visiting it. (Please encourage everyone you know to help each other by reporting what they know. The Herald-Tribune, for example, will have scores of reporters and other employees entering status reports.)

The icons for each property will differ based on the type of property and by color; blue icons if no reports have been made, red icons if a report has been filed.

Subscribe to e-mail alerts

For each property or address icon on the map, there is a “subscribe” tab to set up e-mail weather alerts and other hurricane related information that is relevant to that address or point on the map.

One e-mail alert is sent for each alert unless it is extended or substantively changed. If possible, multiple alerts for an area are combined into one e-mail alert. Each alert includes an unsubscribe link. We will not sell or give out your e-mail address.

If you cannot find a property, especially for addresses outside Florida, double-click on the map when zoomed in the most (neighborhood level) and you will be able to report damage and subscribe to alerts tied to that point on the map.

Florida Shelters

Check the Florida Shelters box in the Homes dashboard and the five nearest shelters will appear in the right column and on the map; click on a shelter icon on the map or in the dashboard and a popup window will appear that includes shelter address and distance from the searched address; enter an address in the shelter popup window and directions to that shelter will appear on the map.

ALERTS DASHBOARD TAB

The latest weather alerts for the coastal southeastern states from Virginia to Texas load automatically and update every 10 minutes.

The alerts are broken down by state in the left column of the dashboard.

Click on a state and that state’s active alerts are displayed in the middle of the dashboard. The alerts range from special statements about record highs to hurricane and tropical storm warnings. Each alert type has a corresponding icon.

Click on any alert and the map will zoom to that alert area and give details about the alert. You can also click on “Show all of these alerts,” and the map will zoom to show all of the alerts in the state.

In addition, the exact area covered by the alert is color-coded on the map based on severity.

When the site loads, there are sometimes alert zones colored without any icons. These provide quick reference to the most severe weather in the Southeast. To see the actual alerts, click on the Alerts dashboard tab.

Hovering over an alert icon on the map will give you a short summary of the alert. Clicking on an alert zone icon will open a popup window, which will show the full text of the National Weather Service alert. This includes the start and stop time of the alert, as well as a detailed narrative of what to expect.

It is common for areas have more than one alert. The icon and color of the area always reflects the most severe warning but all alerts for that area can be viewed by clicking on an alert icon on the map and selecting the corresponding alert’s tab in the popup.

An IBISEYE RSS severe weather feed can be found at:

http://www.ibiseye.com/RSS/newsfeeds.aspx?feed=alerts

Source: Current Tropical storm season related data and weather alerts provided by Weather Underground Weather Underground

Subscribe to e-mail alerts

For each active alert zone, there is a “subscribe” tab within the popup window that will e-mail you weather alerts and other hurricane related information that is relevant to that zone.

One e-mail alert is sent for each alert unless it is extended or substantively changed. If possible, multiple alerts for an area are combined into one e-mail. Each alert includes an unsubscribe link. We will not sell or give out your e-mail address.

If you want to select an area that does not have an active alert, use the HOMES DASHBOARD to search for an address. You can also zoom in as far as possible and double-click on the area to monitor for alerts. An icon will appear; click on the “subscribe” tab in the icon’s popup window to get e-mail alerts.

Satellite Imagery

IBISEYE also incorporates a number of satellite images and “weather tiles.”

In the left column of the Alerts dashboard, click a radio button next to the type of imagery and it will load on to the map. Note: Some of the images can be rather large, so they may take a while to download, particularly the animated GOES feed.

The weather tiles available are:

• Doppler Radar: This is the latest available Doppler radar image of the entire nation.
• Precipitation: This shows the precipitation accumulation from the last 24 hours.
• Clouds: The clouds layer shows global cloud coverage provided by NASA. Updated every 3 hours.
• Default: This will go back to the standard map. You can also load the standard map by clicking the “map” button in the upper right hand corner of the map itself.

The satellite images are:

• GOES Animated: The GOES feeds cover all of the United States and most of the Caribbean for the last 24 hours. This is a very large file.
• Color Enhanced: This as an animated combination of color-enhanced GOES and METEOSAT images. These images are particularly useful in conjunction with the points of interest that forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are watching. The images cover the Atlantic from Africa to Mexico; from the equator north to Canada and northern Europe
• Winds: Shows a recent Atlantic composite satellite image with wind forecasts. Arrows show the wind direction and are color coded for intensity.
• Water Temperature: Shows the current water temperatures across the Atlantic.
• Pressure: Shows a recent Atlantic composite satellite image with the estimated air pressures.
• Click “none” to remove any satellite images from the map.

Note: There is also an option within the legend on the right side of the map to view the latest GOES East/West composite image. Click the bubble once to turn it on; click it again to turn it off.

Source: The GOES images are prepared by the GOES Science Project. (http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/); the color enhances, temperature, pressure and winds are prepared by the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, California. (http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/)

Weather Stations

Click the Weather Stations checkbox in the Alerts dashboard to see the latest National Weather Service weather station and buoy data. The 75 locations with the highest winds are automatically displayed. To see more weather station information, zoom or pan the map to different area.

Each weather station is color coded based on wind speed and shows the wind direction. Hovering over the icon will show detailed information from that weather station

The available information includes: Reporting time, average wind speed, gust speed, wind direction (in degrees), air temperature, air pressure, and wave height, if available.

IBISEYE WIDGET

The widget is a stripped-down IBISEYE Web application that you can embed in your Web page. It is already being used by several New York Times regional newspapers' weather pages.

When there are no named storms brewing, the widget shows “points of interest,” weather patterns that forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are monitoring for possible development.

If a named storm emerges, the widget immediately changes its display to show the latest forecast path for that storm. This is a quick way to keep your users updated on the latest official storm track. And because the widget is dynamic, it offers a “set it and forget it” option for tropical activity, rather than requiring you to manually add static (and sometimes ugly) data from a government site.

To use the widget, paste this iframe into your site's code:

<iframe src="http://www.ibiseye.com/widget.aspx?height=500&width=500&lat=27.36&lng=-77.5&zoom=4" width="500" height="500" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" hspace="0"vspace="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>

To customize the display, adjust the URL within the iframe src parameter with these

settings:

• Width: Sets the width of the widget. Be sure to also set this within the IFrame tag itself. They should be the same. Minimum is 250.
• Height: Sets the height of the widget. Be sure to also set this within the IFrame tag itself. They should be the same. Minimum is 250.
• NoOverlay: To turn off the Satellite view, add this parameter to the iframe source attribute: &nooverlay=true
• Lat: This is the latitude at which the map centers.  ( eg. 27.36)
• Lng: This is the longitude at which the map centers. Default is over Florida (eg. -77.5)
• Zoom: This is the map zoom level. It defaults to 3. Range is from 1 to 17, with 17 being the most zoomed in.

GOOGLE GADGET

The Google Gadget is a version of the IBISEYE widget that can be embedded within your iGoogle home page.

You can see the Gadget here: http://www.google.com/ig/directory?source=gapi&num=24&url=http://www.ibiseye.com/gadget.xml. This link includes an option to embed the gadget into your iGoogle home page.

IBISEYE DEVELOPMENT/TESTING DISCUSSION GROUP:

IBISEYE developers, Maurice Tamman (maurice.tamman@heraldtribune.com) and  Charlie Szymanski (charlie.szymanski@heraldtribune.com), usually post information about changes and additional features before they appear on the live site.

Subscribe to IbisEye.com - hurricanes

Email:

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IBISEYE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY

Hurricanes are at once fascinating, petrifying and devastating.

IBISEYE was launched last year to bridge the gap between the technical world of meteorology and the common man. That is not to say it dumbs down anything; it just attempts to convey information in a manner familiar to those who have not earned a doctorate in one of the environmental sciences.

It is an all-in-one site, providing mountains of real-time weather and tropical storm data; a system to estimate a storm's threat to property and population in its path; a system to exchange damage reports; and an encyclopedic storehouse of hurricane history.

More than that though, the site attempts to put it all in a context, much the way newspapers have traditionally done. The difference is that the system does this on the fly.

In fact, the site takes it name from the Ibis, which is said to be the last bird to leave ahead of a storm and first to return. The bird’s legend is similar to the role of a good news reporter.

The site’s name comes from the desire to give visitors a reporter’s  -- or “ibis eye” -- view of a storm, even if they are thousands of miles away, evacuated or preparing for a storm to strike.

If you have any comments or thoughts, please e-mail the site developers:
Mo (maurice.tamman@heraldtribune.com) or CS (charlie.szymanski@heraldtribune.com)

SPECIAL THANKS

There are a number of people we'd like to thank for a number of reasons (be it with script, data, icons, and more). These include:

• The Prototype and Scriptaculous javascript frameworks.
• The Prototype Window framework.
• The Blackpool Community Church Javascript Team.
• The Quietly Scheming Flex Charting Sampler.
• The FireFox Extension. Simply the best FireFox extension ever created. Saved us many hours of debugging on a daily basis.
• Ron Borresen of our graphics team for all of the icons.
• Alan Shaw of the copydesk for editing this help file.
• Lucas Grindley for his constant nagging to make things better.
• Sue Kittle (CS's mom) for making sure everything passes the "mom can use it" test.