The Paths of Hurricanes

No, I'm not going to touch on Trump and Alabama--just some thoughts on using visuals for hurricanes.

Currently we seem to focus on the track of the center of a hurricane over time.  Since uncertainty increases over time, that leads to the cone of uncertainty we're familiar with.  People have pointed out it's misleading, often misinterpreted.  It also seems to me that we'd gain by getting an idea of the strength of the storm and the width of the area affected.

I doubt one static graphic could handle that many variables, but surely an interactive one could do so.

I'm thinking of an app which would show a projected track for x days, with the duration of the projection representing the likelihood of the track.  Say if the likelihood is 40 percent, show it for 20 seconds, likelihood of 20 percent, show for 10 seconds, etc. 

By going to an interactive app, you'd also have a chance to show intensity and size.  Color code the intensity--red for cat 5, yellow for cat 4 down to blue for tropical depression, etc  Instead of a line for the track use a tubular image.  So at the current position, there would be circle, representing area now being affected. The tube for the future would reflect the increasing size of the area affected.

When a hurricane is developing, the circle at the start of the tube would be relatively small and blue.  As time passes and the storm becomes a cat 1, the circle would expand and now have both blue and yellowish shadings. When the storm becomes a cat 5, the circle would be even larger, and have multicolored rings.  With a storm like Dorian, the tube would grow larger as the colors start to fade to blue.