http://hurricane.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/
You have many options. Click the "Querry Storm Tracks" link to bring up an interface that allows you to plot hurricanes by storm name. Select one or hold down the Cntrl key and select multiple storms to plot. You can zoom in or out on the maps. This tool is great for comparing tracks of famous storms of the past.
I also like the "Climatology" tool. Basically click it and you can choose any year or combination of years from 1851-2004 (2005 won't be there until the NHC finishes updating the 2005 best track dataset). You can even narrow down the search to a particular category (or categories) of hurricanes or by month.
Another great tool is the "Latitude/Longitude tool. I used this tool to plot all Cat 3-4-5 hurricanes to pass within 50 miles of downtown Houston (29.7 / -95.3) from 1900-1950 and then from 1951-2004:
Wow! 6 Cat 3-4-5 hurricanes passing within 50 miles of Houston from 1900-1950! Let's see what's happened recently. I ran the same tool for the dates 1951-2004 and got this result:
Only ONE! Alicia, 1983, and it had weakened to about 70-75 mph by the time it reached Harris County. You can see how lucky we've been for 55 years.
Now another favorite tool is the "Coastal Population Tool" (access it from the main link above, not from the viewer page). Use this tool to search the landfalling hurricane history vs. population for any county (or parish) along the Gulf or east U.S. coasts. I ran one for Harris county and got this:
Look at how the population has increased in the time since we stopped getting hurricanes. Better yet, check out the one for Broward County, FL, Palm Beach area:
It's even more dramatic! Nobody there when they were getting clobbered with hurricanes in the early part of last century. Then the hurricanes stopped (until 2004) and the population soared. You can see why a major hurricane hitting the same area now would cause much more damage.
thanks thanks thanks
