Six Hours at a Time

I found NOAA tropical-cyclone track resources through Data.gov, then retrieved the September 12, 2026 Atlantic HURDAT2 revision directly from the National Hurricane Center on September 24. NOAA identifies its data as public-domain material and uses the CC0 1.0 dedication for internal NOAA data. The build script verifies source SHA-256 df63fabce0ad824d20447e241bd27a2a65ae36cb2f9b62aa3caacd9171c34f11 before reducing the file.

The source spans 1851–2025. This project begins in 1970 because the HURDAT2 documentation says routine satellite coverage across the Atlantic began in the late 1960s. It keeps every storm from 1970 through 2025 that reached at least 34 knots while classified as tropical or subtropical. The resulting 1,083,078-byte static snapshot contains 738 storms and 18,469 track points. It stores time, position, wind, pressure when available, storm status, and special record markers. The page makes no runtime request.

HURDAT2 usually records a storm at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, and 18:00 Coordinated Universal Time. It can add points for landfall, a change in status, a wind or pressure extreme, or rapid changes. For each storm, I use the first point with its lifetime maximum sustained wind as the peak. Wind is stored in knots and converted for display with 1 knot equal to 1.15078 miles per hour. Hurricane categories follow the published wind thresholds; major hurricane means Category 3 or stronger.

Best tracks are retrospective estimates, not direct measurements at every point. NOAA notes that older storms have larger uncertainties and that changes in observing systems affect the record. The page omits extratropical and other non-tropical stages. It cannot show storm size, rainfall, surge, exposure, damage, forecast uncertainty, or cause. Lines between track points are visual connections, not proof that a storm moved in a straight line or changed at a steady rate.