World map shows every hurricane in recorded history

Gilead Amit, contributor

(Images: John Nelson/IDV Solutions)

You might be surprised to learn that this delicate, iridescent image represents one of the most destructive forces in nature.

Compiled by data visualisation expert John Nelson, the map shows the location and intensity of every hurricane and tropical storm recorded since 1851. Using a database accumulated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Nelson incorporated more than 12,000 data points into this infographic.

The map uses the Saffir-Simpson scale, which ranks hurricanes by maximum wind speeds from category 1 - slower than 153 kilometres per hour - all the way up to category 5, in which wind speeds can top 252 km/h. The weaker storms are represented by blue dots, with the stronger ones marked in electric green.

Nelson chose this unusual bottom-up view of the Earth, with Antarctica at the centre, because he found it best represented the patterns underlying hurricane formation. One particularly striking feature is the total absence of data points around the Equator, the black band between the two coloured circles. This is because the Coriolis force, essential in hurricane formation, is too weak to operate at equatorial latitudes.

And before we start worrying about the high number of hurricanes projected over Europe and North America, remember that this is a representation of available data only. Detailed satellite imaging of the eastern and southern hemispheres is a relatively recent development, and so naturally the NOAA archive is less complete for those parts of the world as can be seen in the graph below showing the distribution of available data over time.

A larger version of the map can be viewed here.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/22b293a6/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C0A80Cmap0Eevery0Ehurricane0Ehistory0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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