Straightforward Hurricane Monitoring with Tropycal | by Lee Vaughan | Nov, 2024

Fast Success Information Science

An incredible Python bundle for storm evaluation

Map of the North Atlantic produced with the Tropycal package showing colored tracks for all 2017 hurricanes.
North Atlantic hurricane tracks for the 2017 season coloured by storm kind (by creator)

A buddy approached me not too long ago with an intriguing request: he wished assist deciding on his Spring Break trip vacation spot within the Caribbean. His coronary heart was set on aiding a area not too long ago impacted by a hurricane, hoping his tourism {dollars} would contribute to their restoration efforts. Naturally, he wished to keep away from areas affected too not too long ago, so we determined to take a look at hurricanes from the previous eight years (2017–2024) and exclude websites impacted within the final two (2023–2024).

A map of the Caribbean Sea.
The Caribbean Sea (courtesy of Ian Macky; license)

After all, an AI chatbot may’ve dealt with this in seconds, however I used to be not able to go quietly into that good night time and determined to carry out the evaluation myself utilizing Python. Open-source hurricane information is available from a number of sources, together with the:

  • Nationwide Hurricane Heart (NHC) Information Archive (HURDAT)
  • Worldwide Finest Observe Archive for Local weather Stewardship (IBTrACS)
  • U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hurricanes Information
  • NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory