Google Launches Hurricane Isaac Site 43
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the one-stop-hurricane-news dept.
from the one-stop-hurricane-news dept.
redletterdave writes "Google Crisis Response, one of Google's thousands of active projects that merges various Google tools like Maps, Docs, Forms and Earth, posted a new webpage on Monday dedicated to Tropical Storm Isaac — soon to be Hurricane Isaac — in an effort to disseminate helpful information about the hurricane's path, its forecasted track, and how local residents can stay safe during this emergency situation. Google's Crisis Map for Hurricane Isaac allows the user to set up and see public alerts from weather.gov, flood gauge forecasts, surge zones, evacuation zones and routes, barrier resources and relevant YouTube videos for each impacted area."
Actual Google site (Score:5, Informative)
The actual Google Crisis site is:
http://google.org/crisismap/2012-tropical-system-isaac [google.org]
Intensity level (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Intensity level (Score:3, Informative)
Intensity isn't everything. Location matters too. Isaac is weaker, sure, but it's expected to strengthen in the Gulf a little and the predicted path near landfall is surprisingly similar to that of Katrina, kind of on the east side of New Orleans or over the top. That's the worst situation for landfall in that area, because the counter-clockwise flow of the hurricane will tend to push the water up into Lake Pontchartrain on the north side of the city and up the canal system that connects the city to the ocean on the SE side. A Category 2 is not nearly as bad as the stronger hurricanes, but it's still bad depending upon timing with respect to tides and how long the rainfall lingers. The predictions for storm surge don't look too serious so far (look at the maps of "storm surge probabilities" and "storm surge exceedance" at the National Hurricane Center [noaa.gov]), but they're still looking at a 50% chance of exceeding a metre or so (looks like the max is 3-5 feet at the 50% confidence level). This *should* be inside the levee limits. The system *should* be able to handle that, but complicated systems have a habit of failing in inconvenient ways. Hopefully people are taking the evacuations seriously in the areas where it's been recommended.
Re:Actual Google site (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a big fan of wunderground's Wundermap [wunderground.com].