Analyzing Hurricanes Using NASA Earth Observation Data

[esarmiento1]

Data Science Lifecycle Focus

This lesson will primarily focus on data discovery, data analysis, and visualization using multi-source hurricane-related datasets, including NASA, NOAA, USGS, FEMA, and global climate models.

Thematic Focus

The lesson will center on major hurricanes, such as Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Harvey, to explore how satellite, meteorological, and disaster response data can be used to track storms, assess their intensity, and analyze their impact on communities and the environment.

Key Takeaways

• Understand how to access and utilize multi-source hurricane datasets, including satellite imagery, sea surface temperature, wind speed, and precipitation data.
• Learn to identify and interpret hurricane tracking and impact data from sources like NASA’s MODIS/GOES, NOAA’s hurricane databases, USGS flood records, and FEMA disaster reports.
• Gain experience in visualizing hurricane paths, storm intensity, and affected areas using GIS and data visualization techniques.
• Learn how to apply time-series and spatial analysis to examine trends in hurricane frequency, intensity, and long-term climate patterns.
• Explore predictive modeling techniques, such as machine learning and statistical methods, to forecast hurricane intensity and potential impacts.
• Understand how hurricane data can inform disaster preparedness and response strategies, aiding policymakers, emergency responders, and communities in mitigating future risks.
• Become familiar with different Earth observation platforms and climate models that contribute to hurricane monitoring and prediction.

[jfmartinez4]

This is a broad net, I would recommend trying to focus on fewer takeaways and perhaps define what you mean by "impact", so that you can start narrowing down the data and the goals of your project.

[cdeodati]

I like this project idea and think there is a lot of great data you can use for your interests. I agree that perhaps this is a little broad - a way to narrow down your interest for this could be to think about what points in time you are most interested in (i.e., storm prediction, path data, response efforts and aftermath, etc..) and dive into one of these. You mention you are interest in a time-series analysis, so if you want to address every point in time, you could instead focus on one hurricane and decide on a few thematic areas in order to narrow the scope. For instance, think about what level you are interested in looking at disaster preparedness: community level? State level? Regional level?