Hi everyone - I will continue to develop my hurricane tracking unit that I presented at the summer conference. I am having the students collect daily lat/long info on the hurricanes so far this year so they will develop their own coordinate data set over the history of the hurricane(s). We will then input the data into an excel chart and import it into ARCvoyager. This past summer, I had a bit of trouble manipulating the data so it could work clearly in the program, so I may have to make the excel chart myself and then let the kids just worry about the software. I have been using www.wunderground.com as my data source (this is my FAVORITE weather site on the web). Go to the "tropics/hurricanes" tab and you will find info on all current storms including lat/long, windspeed and charting tools (there is a lull in tropical storms right now in the Atlantic). Check out the site and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Thanks,
Sean

Here are more detailed directions on how to use the data:

- copy hurricane data from "weather underground" (wwww.wunderground.com) and paste into excel program

- save as delimited text

- open ARCvoyager (I am assuming you can navigate to the main screen)

- Click the “+” button on the upper left corner.
Find and open the world30.shp file (I keep mine in a separate folder with the hurricane data for the kids to find easier)

- Click “+” again and find/open country.shp (I also put this in the same easy to find folder for the kids)

- Now click “window” button and then click “voyager.apr”
Make sure “table” icon is highlighted and then click “add”

- find your hurricane data file and open it

- Set file type as “delimited text”

- Click "your hurricane" and “ok”

- Click on arcvoyager’s main screen to view main toolbar

- Click “view” and “add event theme”

- Make sure “yourhurricane.txt” is in the “table” field and click ok

This is the procedure to get a hurricane file into the GIS program. The data may need to be manipulated a little to get it to load properly. I know what I am trying to say, but it may get a little cloudy when actually trying to perform the task. Please let me know any feedback or questions.

Thanks,

Sean

here is how I formatted the data to work in excel and then GIS (I have also included some extra info on the hurricane that you may not be able to find)

Hi Sean,

I was unable to access the Tropics/Hurricanes page on wunderground. I don't know if that segment is down, or if it is simply because the U.S. isn't being threatened by a hurricane.

Brendan

Thanks for giving me the idea of attaching the excel spreadsheet that is created according to my procedure.

This is the link to the tropics page on weather underground:

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/

The page covers tropical storms worldwide and the pacific is still very active so you should be able to access it now. On a side note, there are a couple blogs (Dr. Masters is brilliant) about the latest El Nino that is forming over the pacific and its effects on the world climate. The anomoly has basically ended our hurricane season and will have effects on our winter weather as well. Enjoy.

Sean

here is a link to the hurricane archive (kinda hard to find)

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/hurrarchive.asp

sean