How to Track a Hurricane
If you are a weather buff you may have studied a little bit about hurricanes. Hurricanes are truly amazing and powerful storms. They can do tons of damage as seen in New Orleans. It is possible for individuals to track hurricanes on their own if they want to. Science teachers, weather buffs and individuals who live along the coasts are all people who may have an interest in tracking a hurricane. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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FEMA for kids offers a free downloadable map for anyone who wants to track a hurricane. It has the lines for longitude and latitude that you will need to chart the course of a hurricane.
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Learn the stages of a hurricane. There are really four main stages. First, is a low pressure area categorized as a tropical wave. Second, the tropical wave increases and becomes a tropical depression. Third, the tropical depression increases and becomes a tropical storm. That is normally when we are alerted to a possibility of a hurricane. Finally, the tropical storm increases and it becomes a hurricane.
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Collect data from the National Hurricane Center. On the homepage you can choose to look at the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean. You can view both if you want or the one that is near your shore. Look for a yellow circle. That means there is a tropical wave. You should chart this on your map and keep an eye on it. A bright red circle indicates a tropical depression. A dark red circle indicates a tropical storm. Click on the circles and get their latitude and longitude. You can use the same colors as the National Hurricane Center on your map so you know what stage each weather area is at.
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Update your map each day with a little dot and track the path of the weather. Change colors if the storm increases a stage. Watch what the weather is doing around the hurricane (or storm) and see if you can predict where the storm will go next. If you are wrong see what made your prediction wrong. Did the wind change directions? Was the water temperature warmer than you thought? Answering these questions will help your predictions become more likely the next time. Once you have experience you will get even better at predicting where the storm will go and whether it will gain intensity or not.
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Check your predictions against local weather and see if you agree. Watch the storm to see which one of you is closest to the truth. Don't rely on the weather man's predictions, just learn from them. Keep practicing. The more you do the more you will learn and the better of a hurricane tracker you will become.
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Tips & Warnings
All weather services use the information provided for you from the National Hurricane Center. You get different forecasts because meteorologists interpret the information differently. You should always get your original data from the National Hurricane Center.
They do make hurricane tracking software that you can buy if you don't want to draw your own map.
Track the hurricane from far away and not from the city it is going to hit. This is dangerous and can even be deadly.
