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Wind Map of US Will Blow You Away

Posted by timothy on from the concentrate-especially-on-oklahoma dept.

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Talk about visualizations. Ever wondered what the wind would look like if you could see it in action from above? A new project posted online by a pair of Google computer scientists, called simply Wind Map, has to be seen to be believed. "It can be quite hypnotizing to watch the gusty trails blast across the American continent, skitter over the Sierras, get roughed up by the Rockies, and whoosh over the great plains on its way to Canada," writes Chris Taylor. Wind Map is the brainchild of Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, the co-leaders of Google's 'Big Picture' visualization research group in Cambridge, Mass. Wind patterns are constantly changing, of course, which is why the Wind Map designers have also given us a moving-image gallery of previous blustery days."

5 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Next step: Google Maps by slasho81 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd love to see a Wind overlay on Google Maps all over the world. Would be great for sailing. That's why we need open data.

  2. Freakin' awesome! by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is incredible technology. Wouldn't you love to have some checkboxes to turn on/off: state borders, topography, jet stream, hi/lo pressure systems, time display...

  3. Hurricanes by sehryan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Personally, I am looking forward to checking out this map during hurricane season. This map is the number one thing I am going back to when a hurricane strikes land here in the US.

    --
    The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
  4. Training and Visualization by AtomicSnarl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a retired weather guy with over 25 years working with and training weathermen, this is one of the best tools I've seen. Applause!

    Understanding fluid flow and visualizing it is not easy, but it crucial to meteorology because that dynamic drives and reveals the mechanisms that create the weather systems we track, such as fronts, storms, and so on. Given the tools seen are usually something like this (from ADDS) or this (from CoolWx), the WindMap does a much more intuitive job of showing the strength and patterns in merging flow.

    So, well done! The only improvement I can think of for better use operationally would be an hourly looper of, say, the past six hours with a 3-4 second pause for each hour. This would let you track specific features as the day goes on.

    --
    Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
  5. Have a look at their other projects (NSFW) by nbritton · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you think that's interesting, check out their other project http://hint.fm/projects/touch/ (description) and http://www.fleshmap.com/touch/index.html (direct link) on their site as well. Please note both links are NSFW.

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