How close can it get?- - Closest Point of Approach - - |
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You have seen the by the National Hurricane Center issued three day forecast of the path of a hurricane, and you are wondering just "how close it can get". With this interactive program you can quickly determine an approximation of the closest point of approach of the eye of the storm to your island. Just select your island (or if your island is not listed enter your coordinates) and three day forecast, consisting of the latitude and longitude pairs of the forecast and click on 'Show me how close it can get...'. You can use the U.S. Gazetteer to find latitude/longitude coordinates for US cities and zipcodes and zipcodes or the Astrodienst-website for World-wide queries (results have to be converted from dd:mm:ss-format). A related tool on this website (How close is it?) calculates how far the storm is right now and how long before you might experience strong winds.
Caution: Remember that forecasts are 'just' forecasts. The exact path of a hurricane is very hard to predict, so the uncertainties are large, especially for the 48 and 72 hour positions. Also, do not focus on just the eye of the storm. The windfield of hurricanes can be huge, so although that it seems that the eye of the storm stays quite far away from you, the winds don't need to. More important the torrential rainfall normally associated with tropical systems can cover large areas and can cause flooding and mudslides. In fact, most fatalities associated with hurricanes are attributed to the rainfall, not the windforce itself. So be sure to look at the whole picture!
For people living in threatened areas of Europe, I have compiled an incomplete lookup table with the latitude/longitude coordinates of some of the cities in 'coastal' European countries. The latitude/longitude can be entered in the 'Or enter your Coordinates' section. See here (pop-up). By the way, London is at 51.5N, 0.1W, Paris at 48.8N, 2.3E and Groningen at 53.2N, 6.6E. Stay safe! -Gert |
Currently Tracking:
- Post-tropical Cyclone Kirk - Latest Advisory: 300 PM GMT Mon Oct 07 2024
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