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Wind Map of US Will Blow You Away
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."
Big suction holes west of Dallas and Philadelphia.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Canada sucks. Heh. I always wondered what that little nub of Minnesota sticking into Canada was caused by.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I always knew California blew.
Conservative, mod down for violating
page failed with many errors for me.
also all of the jokes so far blow
I clicked on the link and as soon as I saw the Mashable banner, I closed the page. Fuck spam advertising for those twats.
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.
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...
Very cool. If someone mashes it up with a topo map it'll be awesome.
Don't bother trying to watch this in firefox, chrome works much better. FF is falling way behind in the lead up to HTML5, indeed, it kind of feels like IE6 did about 5 years ago.
Its a pretty cool app, too bad wind is a stupid way to make electricity.
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.
What are they eating in San Jose to produce all that wind?! Seriously. Something is seriously wrong. Seek medical attention.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
This was posted on there on Wednesday or so. Usually slashdot is desperately trying to copy facebook, but this time slashdot is a few days behind google plus.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
much as Windows Lite is str4ining
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.
Cats. There are cats in my adblocker... Also wind and stuff. (for those Offtopic mods...)
I write professional videogame reviews! http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/
Oh... I thought the East-coast was a visualization of tax-dollars.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
The map shows a west wind over Boston. But anyone can look at the current radar, and see it's an East wind. Looks useless so far.
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.
Slashdotters are like lab mice that always seek out cocaine, but instead of cocaine, they're focused on little fluffy clouds.
I was thinking I'd love to see it as a layer in Google Earth, being able to see the wind flowing over and around the topography would be very interesting. I see a few null areas with little wind showing so I plan to check them out in GE to see if some local hills or mountains that I don't remember are creating them.
Big deal -- Van Gogh saw this stuff with his ordinary human equipment and then painted it. This tech stuff is merely pale imitation of what that superior intelligence saw and recorded to canvas long ago.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
Looks cool but what altitude is this? Do they have a map for different altitudes? What layer has the jet stream?
It's neat to see average winds on a visual like this. But because of gusts and such, it's possible to have high averages in locations where if you were to look at the windspeed profile over the course of the day - it would be of very limited use. (Lots of wind at certain times of day, but going flat otherwise.) Other areas that have seemingly low winds (around 10-15 MPH or so) would actually be a lot better for power extraction because it's nearly constant over the course of a day.
It would be neat if they could have extra overlays that would allow one to compare how variable the winds are in comparison to the average speed. Such data would also be more useful when it comes to showing where use of wind power would be most effective.
I assume that the winds are "surface" winds. It would be interesting to see the wind field at higher altitudes, too. AFAIK a surface low pressure area will have winds blowing into it and above it will be a high altitude high pressure with winds blowing out of it. At least that's how it's been explained to me.
Nate
The joke in the title blows.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
This wind map really swept up my interest. It's really cool to see wind wind up on a map like this. I wonder if this will end up getting jet streamed over to an app of some kind? It would be quite the windward sight.
coomun#ity at
This is what it looks like when you don't trim your beard.
Table-ized A.I.
Forget sailing. It looks like it could be a great tool for figuring out movement of allergens such as pollen through the air, for studying allergy outbreaks.
AccountKiller
What I want is to get a law passed that you can put your solar panels up anywhere in state and get paid back in terms of tax credits and local rates as if they were on your house. The idea of putting panels up west of the Cascades seems insane to me. There are transmission lines that pass through the SE of Oregon, the highest solar index and now I see the highest wind speed.
But it is all bullshit compared to the jet stream. Check out http://www.skywindpower.com/ww/index.htm The only problem with it is that it totally fucking awesome so no one will use it.
Wind Map of US Will Blow You Away
That's what she said.
I caught this the other night after taking my Ambien. Ohhh...
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
I'd also like to see the animation speed scaled or scalable to match the map scale/zoom level.
It sure looks cool, but the animation speed is misleading relative to the actual wind speed.
We all knew Canada sucked, but now we know exactly where and how much.
Because Oklahoma sucks and Nebraska blows. NyuckNyuckNyuckNyuckNyuck
Move along anonymous cowards
what more needs to be said?
But, then who wants to live in hell-whole Baltimore , Jersey City or NY? All violent, overpopulated pR0nfests. Toss in Boston and Jacksonville. They can suck sulfur or freeze in their electric blankets ... beings they are not NEEDED or wanted.
What's NE of Denver, that makes winds turn so abruptly in a "perfect" small circle?
Ever since Conan bought Mashup You just can't trust ANYTHING any more (Happy April fool's day)
For Europeans that like to *feel* superior.