Interesting Disaster Related Web Sites

Southeastern U.S. Marine Weather
http://forecast.weather.gov/
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has launched a new Web portal that provides marine observations, forecasts and information on coastal wind and water conditions for the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
The site has four tabs that represent marine themes: current observations, hazards, tides, and marine forecast. More specifically:
  • Observations: all of the near real-time mooring data for the site is aggregated by data managers at USC. This aggregated data provides the most recent mooring updates to users; additionally, map overlays include sea surface temperature.
  • Hazards: using Valid Time Event Code, all active long-fused marine and coastal county hazards are assigned color codes for the appropriate areas on the Carolinas Coast map. All short-fused warnings are displayed using polygons. This creates a visual tool to see active hazards. Written hazard text can also be read by clicking on the hazard title (i.e., smallcraft advisory, gale warning, etc).
  • Tides: Tidal information can be obtained by clicking on the coastline. All tide charts within 10 miles of the area that was clicked will appear in a pop-up box. Also, NOAA water level stations are highlighted on the map so users can see a plot of predicted and actual water level data.
  • Forecasts: all of the marine zones are outlined so users can click in the zone they are interested in and read the 5-day marine forecast for that zone.
Map overlays, which can be toggled on/off, provide users with additional information and are incorporated in the display for each of the tabs.