A small data-visualisation project that explores the NOAA HURDAT2 Atlantic-basin hurricane dataset (1851–2025, ~2,000 storms, ~56,000 track points). Originally a 2023 coursework project; refreshed in 2026 with a proper data pipeline, a few bug fixes, and a clean project layout.
The repo name says "climate data" — the dataset is tropical-cyclone tracks specifically, which sit at the intersection of meteorology and climate research. The write-up touches on climate-relevant trends (season widening, poleward migration of landfall) but does not do formal climate attribution.
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├── report/
│ └── hurricane-analysis.Rmd # main write-up (renders to PDF)
├── R/
│ └── hurricane-analysis.R # same analysis as a sourced script
├── data/
│ ├── fetch_data.R # download + tidy NOAA HURDAT2
│ └── README.md # data source + column reference
└── output/
├── hurricane-analysis.pdf # rendered report
└── figures/ # key charts exported as PNG
# R 4.x with: install.packages(c("maps", "tidyverse", "httr", "stringr", "rmarkdown"))
Rscript data/fetch_data.R # one-off data download
Rscript -e 'rmarkdown::render("report/hurricane-analysis.Rmd")'
open report/hurricane-analysis.pdf- Dataset summaries — total storms, year span, per-storm track-point counts; Katrina 2005 as a worked example.
- Spatial visualisation — a reusable Atlantic basemap, all tracks coloured by windspeed, and a single-year view.
- Proximity to a reference city — vectorised great-circle distance from each track point to Port-au-Prince; map of every storm that has passed within 100 km.
- Temporal patterns — storms per year, landfall zone over time, peak windspeed per year, the Atlantic season by month, and a decade-stacked view that shows the season widening.
The original project loaded a hurdat2_tidy.RData file that was never
committed, so the repo was non-runnable. data/fetch_data.R now downloads
the latest HURDAT2 release from NOAA directly and reproduces the tidy
format the scripts expect.
| # | Original | Fixed |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | if (y <-90 & y> 90) silently parsed as y <- 90; 90 > 90 (dead branch) |
if (any(y < -90 | y > 90)) |
| 2 | findD_city had a dangling x = Taipei reference that errored |
removed |
| 3 | install.packages("maps") mid-script |
moved to README install notes |
| 4 | findD_city_v2 called as scalar inside a vector mutate |
rewritten to be vectorised |
| 5 | Redundant library(dplyr) (already loaded by tidyverse) |
dropped |
| 6 | for (i in x){ x <- c(...) } self-reassigning accumulator in Hurdat2_summary |
rewritten with group_by/summarise |