Outstanding Maps

(1) Having recently been to Manhattan, New York, I thought the first map I'd post was the transit lines in Manhattan.

Maps like this definitely helped me get around the city, and thus, survive the concrete jungle.

This map is from the website of New York University, which has its campus in the heart of Manhattan. It shows how systematic Manhattan is laid out, and how subway lines are widepread to help people get to their destinations.

Looking at this may scare some people in thinking that Manhattan is a jungle of subways and streets (which, don't get me wrong, it can be), but this map is very useful. It also does not depict how beautiful the city is with its skyscrapers, restaurants, and parks.


(2) I have always been fascinated by tornadoes and how they form. The Midwest is infamous for having the breeding grounds of the world's fiercest thunderstorms, which are usually the primary features of the onset of tornadoes.

I got this map from the website of Cap Weather Consulting, a company for weather insurance. Probably most of the people residing in the Midwest carry some sort of weather insurance. CWC uses maps like these to help support claims.

This map shows a radar map of an F5 tornado centered in Moore, Oklahoma in the late Spring of 1999. F5 tornadoes are the strongest tornadoes on the Fujita scale, meaning their wind speed could reach over 250 miles per hour- almost twice the speed of a hurricane. Usually when one looks at a radar map and sees a bunch of red spaces, that usually means bad news. The strong thunder cells are depicted as red spaces on the map, and it looks like a long band of red can be seen around the city of Moore. This map is not a good sign for those residing around Moore, Oklahoma. And indeed on this day, an F5 tornado touch down.


(3) Another map that came to mind was a map that I saw during the widepread southern California wildfires during early Fall 2007.

This map is from the website of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2). There main goal is to provide up-to-date maps for institutions, such as firefighting departments, to help them in situations like that in October 2007.

What is seen on this map are the spots where fire was still actively burning in southern California on October 2007, labeled with red. Smoke can also be seen flowing to the west.

The magnitude of the wildfires were so awesome that even smoke became visible in satellite maps. One could even mistaken them as high clouds on a map. The easterly direction and extent of the smoke also speaks for the strength of the wind coming from the mountains and desert to the east. The only thing I would like to know about this map is the time of day.