Previous: Mapping a Poem

Using Esri's API for JavaScript, the Dojo Toolkit, and NOAA Hurricane Tracks Map Service

In order to build this application, I wanted
  • hurricane name,
  • its category,
  • its wind speed,
  • and its date. 
But there were going to be multiple observations for each hurricane; many hurricanes never achieved the categories I needed; and each recorded observation meant a corresponding track (Object ID) and date for the observation. 

Looking at a meteorologist’s table of hurricane data I realized it was just a matter of identifying the maximum wind speed each hurricane achieved (I toyed briefly with the idea of including an intersection with its minimum pressure but knew it would exponentially increase the complexity of the already beyond-me task).  That maximum wind speed would represent a single record (and a single date).  Once I had a collection of wind speeds for each BTID (unique storm ID) I could query that collection for the H4/H5 values, which would also be associated with the wind speeds.  It was a simple matter of reorganizing the data so that it could be queried.

Picture
Click here to open the application (in a new window).


What I wound up with was this:
  • Use a SQL query to retrieve only the observations which were H4 or H5 category.
  •  Pass all this data one observation at a time to a function that would note the highest windspeeds for each storm track in an array.
  • Pass that array to the datagrid for display on the web page.


We pass lightly over the usual all-nighters, the last clean sock, running at 3 a.m. to wake up, wondering if it really was time to try meth instead of coffee…

One primary characteristic of a mashup is its collaborative nature—not just bringing together different datasets but using many resources for working through a problem.   Maybe that’s one reason they’re so appealing.  There’s something profoundly social about them.

But it may be the process of learning how to code a web application that is most social.  It might be a sad commentary on my life that I spent Thanksgiving with my best friend (and his hideous cold) working through JavaScript and Dojo in our separate corners of the room (because a virus is also social) and we actually had a great time.

OK, it's sad.  But in a happy kind of way.