Animated Hurricane Maps

Two weeks ago CartoDB released CartoDB Heat Maps. This new heat maps option in CartoDB leverages the power of the Torque library, which allows developers to efficiently render and publish very large datasets to the client.

One of the first maps to use CartoDB Heat Maps was Placenames Heatmap. This excellent map allows you to view a heat map of words used in United States place names. Type a word into the map and it searches US placenames and creates a heat map of the results.

However CartoDB Heat Maps can also be used to create animated heat maps. Where this could be particular useful is in visualizing weather data and patterns. For example, check-out this map of historical Hurricane and Tropical Cyclone Track Density. The map animates the track density of hurricanes and tropical cyclones from 2000-2013, using data from the National Climatic Data Center - NOAA.