A serious challenge to anyone seeking to disseminate information is how to best present the data in a fashion that holds the greatest value for the greatest share of your audience. No one (1) map, by NHC, Skeetobite or anyone else will give all of the relevant details for all parties. A number of new maps are required. Casual users want something pretty, enthusiasts want tons of data and those folks stopping by because they heard a hurricane is coming to their area need a graphical depiction of the specific threat that they can understand at a glance and take action.

We started adding comments to the maps because we found that the storms were so large in area that anyone living within the entire map was affected to one degree or another. This was especially true of Frances. These comments included; “Tropical Storm force winds extend 200 miles from the center of the storm. All areas on this map are affected”, “Hurricane force winds extend x miles from center”.

I believe that the accuracy of the NRL wind field maps combined with the forecast path, overlaid on a real street map is the best way to go. One major problem is that the NRL wind field maps are for winds occurring over the ocean, which is useless when trying to forecast wind fields over land.

Here is an inland wind field map by the NHC that should have much more prominence on their website.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gifs/GC13508.GIF
Users should have easy access to this map and should be able to zoom to the county level, at a minimum. These maps could be combined with the Skeetobite maps very easily. People don’t understand what is coming until you show them a street map with “123 anystreet” covered in red and you tell them that tonight is the night that pigs will actually take flight.