Author: Michael J. Gillotte
The Tracking Analyst extension to ArcView GIS Version 3.1 offers a useful tool for representing temporally dependent spatial and attribute information (i.e., feature information dependent on time). Demonstrations of historical hurricane storm tracks are illustrative of some of the power of Tracking Analyst. However, the dynamic period during the existence of a hurricane presents a data management challenge. Both the actual storm track and the forecasts are constantly changing. New hurricane positions and attributes are constantly updating the storm track to reflect observed hurricane positions and intensity. The weather service also updates predictions of where the storm is expected to go and its expected intensity.
This paper will present various approaches for loading and representing dynamic hurricane tracks including their forecasts. Examples using the tracks associated with the catastrophic Hurricane Mitch will be presented.
Michael J. Gillotte
TASC, Inc.
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