As someone who grew up in the Caribbean, I know quite a bit about hurricanes: how to prepare for them, what to do (and don’t) when they approach my area, and how important it is to be informed when they are nearby.
Before jumping into details, let me start by sharing a definition. According to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, a hurricane is “a tropical cyclone with winds of 74 miles (119 kilometers) per hour or greater that is usually accompanied by rain, thunder, and lightning, and that sometimes moves into temperate latitudes”. (1) If you are from other regions of the world, this definition might sound a bit familiar, and there’s a good reason why. Besides being called hurricanes, they are also called cyclones or typhoons.
What’s the difference between a cyclone, a hurricane, and a typhoon?
According to an article published in National Geographic: “hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are the same phenomena: a storm system. However, they are called differently depending on where they occur” (2). That means that their only difference lies in where they happen on the map.
Speaking of Maps
As I mentioned before, one of the most important things to do when a hurricane is nearby is to stay informed. Why? Because sometimes, if they approach your area with a lot of strength, you will be forced to leave your house or hotel and take shelter in a safe location. This is especially important if you are staying near a coastline, river, or lake, as the heavy rains in short periods of time can create sudden flooding.
The thing with this natural phenomenon is that it cannot be predicted with much time in advance. So to assure your safety, you need to closely watch the minor changes in variables such as latitude + altitude + intensity of the wind + extension and density of the rainy clouds.
What does this have to do with travel?
Imagine you just rented a small place by the beach, you are enjoying your dreamed holidays and you notice something weird in the weather. You might not know which radio or T.V. stations to tune in to and even if you do, perhaps you don’t speak the local language with enough proficiency to understand what they are saying. And that is when this new (at least to me) feature of Google Maps comes in handy!
It allows you to keep track of a storm, see how it evolves given the latest satellite updates, and provides relevant links about safety and how to proceed if help is needed.
The most remarkable thing about this discovery is that I heard about it not because of Google or Local Guides, but because of a worried family member living in the United States, who sent us the link so we could stay up to date without a lot of effort.
So, I want to send a huge THANK YOU to the Google Search and Google Maps teams for this fantastic initiative to keep us safe and make the map much more helpful! And I want to invite both locals and travelers to make the best out of it, if needed!
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