So you’re a modern day storm chaser. “Twister” remains in your top 5 favorite flicks ever. You trawl YouTube for highlights, send off 140-character-long remarks about everything from monsoons around Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim, watch for news of tornadoes in the American Midwest, and follow coastal onslaughts brought on by hurricanes of intensities grand and grander. Put on your wetsuit then, because a hardy sea creature called Fay, presently traveling through Cuba, is slated to hit southern Florida early next week, and the volume of information available to Web-savvy observers is extensive.
Of course, you can visit the de facto forecaster for many a weather watcher - Weather.com - for relevant information. The site is home to news reports, an interactive tracker, videos, and satellite data. All the standard stuff. If you’re situated in the target zone, for whatever reason, and you’re one to document such occurrences, you can upload videos for site visitors to see.
Another base of operation on the Web, MyFoxHurricane.com, run out of the Floridian city of Tampa Bay, seems to do Weather.com one better so far as visual material is concerned. The front page is literally stuffed with satellite readings, both static and time-lapsed. And like Weather.com, MyFoxHurricane offers coverage of all regions most vulnerable during the year’s peak hurricane season: the Eastern Atlantic, the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the entire southeastern seaboard of the US. The site also gives users the ability to view live video, watch a “supertracker,” chat with fellow visitors, and even transfer hurricane data to Google Earth if you choose. The site presents links to various governmental and non-profit organizations as well. One such destination is NOAA’s National Weather Service website.
The National Weather Service website is, visually speaking, predictably basic, but it’s a useful resource nonetheless. For a quick way to look at multiple perspectives taken by NOAA of the situation pertaining to Hurricane Fay’s presumed path of travel north through Florida, the NWS is perhaps one of the best places to go. No video to consume, from what we can gather, but if you’re interested in the goings on surrounding the cyclone, you can glean some unfiltered output in the ‘State’ link under the ‘Text Messages’ designation.
AccuWeather is one more source for information on storms, which, like all of the abovementioned destinations, has done the duty of putting Fay front and center. It has gathered the requisite satellite and radar data, video updates, analysis, and warnings for advanced preparation, and, if need be, evacuation. It should be said that the layout of AccuWeather is somewhat of a strong point for the service. Nearly everything one could wish for is immediately on tap.
Mobile
As for mobile readings and alerts, both Weather.com and AccuWeather make for quality information engines. Each service’s mobile-specific websites are free
to use (they do require mobile Web connections, however). For iPhone owners, the always-available Weather application, which consults AccuWeather, does lack in detail, so if you find yourself wanting for an enhanced view of Fay’s situation this week, WeatherBug [iTunes URL] provides a free application download.There is also Twitter to consider! Sure, it’s had its ups and downs, some particularly newsworthy in and of themselves. But as with the geological tremors that swept parts of California late last year and earlier this year, there’s no question that the microblogging service we’ve developed undying love-hate relations with will prove useful to anyone concerned with Hurricane Fay and her abusive intentions.
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