How to Make a Hurricane Map

Esri's Maps We Love is a great collection of interactive maps. It also contains some great insider tips for making great maps. For each map in the collection Esri explores what makes the map work and how the map was made.

The latest addition to the collection is the How-To: Hurricane Map. This Esri Story Map is itself a lesson in cartography as it provides a step-by-step tutorial as to how and why historical hurricane data can be visualized on a map. The finished map shows every hurricane and tropical storm since the mid-1800's using data from NOAA.

As you progress through the story map you can follow how the map was made. This includes a discussion of the choice of map projection and the use of custom picture symbology to represent the data. As you progress through the story map you also get to observe the effect of each cartographic decision as each in turn is added to the map.

If you are interested in creating weather maps you might also like Mapbox's How to build a wind map with WebGL.