27 Storms: Arlene to Zeta
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- Visualizations by:
- Greg Shirah
- View full credits
Many records were broken during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season including the most hurricanes ever, the most category 5 hurricanes, and the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic as measured by atmospheric pressure. This visualization shows all 27 named storms that formed in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and examines some of the conditions that made hurricane formation so favorable.
The animation begins by showing the regions of warm water that are favorable for storm development advancing northward through the peak of hurricane season and then receding as the waters cool. The thermal energy in these warm waters powers the hurricanes. Strong shearing winds in the troposphere can disrupt developing young storms, but measurements indicate that there was very little shearing wind activity in 2005 to impede storm formation.
Sea surface temperatures, clouds, storm tracks, and hurricane category labels are shown as the hurricane season progresses.
This visualization shows some of the actual data that NASA and NOAA satellites measured in 2005 — data used to predict the paths and intensities of hurricanes. Satellite data play a vital role in helping us understand the land, ocean, and atmosphere systems that have such dramatic effects on our lives.
NOTE: This animation shows the named storms from the 2005 hurricane season. During a re-analysis of 2005, NOAA's Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center determined that a short-lived subtropcial storm developed near the Azores Islands in late September, increasing the 2005 tropical storm count from 27 to 28. This storm was not named and is not shown in this animation.
'27 Storms: Arlene to Zeta' played in the SIGGRAPH 2007 Computer Animation Festival in August 2007. It was also a finalist in the 2006 NSF Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.
Full version with audio and annotations
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Additional credits:
Sea surface temperature Data by Remote Sensing Systems and sponsored by the NASA Earth Science REASoN DISCOVER Project and the AMSRE-E Science Team.
NCEP Cloud composite courtesy of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.
Storm tracks and strenghts courtesy of NOAA's National Weather Service.
Blue Marble MODIS data composite courtesy of the MODIS Science Team NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the NASA Earth Observatory.
Music created and produced by UniqueTracks. Fantasy (theme from Norma) - Vincenzo Bellini.
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Animators
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
- Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Eric Sokolowsky (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
- James W. Williams (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Jeff de La Beaujardiere (NASA)
- Jesse Allen (SSAI)
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC)
- Marte Newcombe (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Randall Jones (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Stuart A. Snodgrass (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
- Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Visualizer
- Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Writer
- Michael Starobin (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Scientist
- Jeff Halverson (JCET UMBC)
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Narrator
- Michael Starobin (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Project support
- Joycelyn Thomson Jones (NASA/GSFC)
- Kevin Mahoney (CSC)
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
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GOES
ID: 33 -
Aqua Sea Surface Temperature
ID: 238 -
TOPEX Sea Surface Height Anomaly
ID: 514 -
Hurricane/Tropical Data
ID: 282
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.