Hurricane Michael: The best news storytelling
The News Porn “roundups” highlight the most creative journalism from digital news outlets worldwide, for specific news topics.
The hurricane trackers
“Hurricane Tracker”, Wall Street Journal
In my opinion, the WSJ has the clearest hurricane tracker, that is displayed as a widget or here as an evergreen page which follows every recent storm in the world. The Journal has also made some very clear infographics.
“A city-by-city forecast”, The Washington Post
Another tracker that shows more granularly the geographical impact of the storm-force winds, but is maybe more complicated to read.
“Tracking Hurricane Michael”, The New York Times
A more simple visualization.
On the down side — even though it might seem obvious — I feel that these 3 trackers don’t explain clearly enough the intensity scale of the winds (which one is the more devastating? Tropical-storm level? Hurricane 4 level?). Clearer labels could help here.
The other stuff
“One Mile of Devastation in Florida”, The New York Times
A standout piece: the Times built a panorama visualization of the Mexico Beach coast from multiple photos, which slides horizontally on scroll. Feels weird at first, but definitely a cool idea. They also mapped which buildings had been destroyed or damaged!
“Before and after images of Hurricane Michael”, The Washington Post
“See Neighbors Rescue a Couple Trapped in Their Collapsing Home”, The New York Times
An interesting integration of user-generated footage (here in vertical format), which was broken down in small bits to give more depth to the story, and completed with original photography & reporting.
“How Hurricane Michael got so strong, so quickly”, Axios
Two simple charts with labels on hover, in classic Axios style.
“Hurricane Michael was a storm for the ages”, Axios
A pretty interesting data viz, which encapsulates several variables (year, month, wind speed, duration, hurricane category) and manages to stay understandable.
“How to Tell if a Hurricane Is Headed Your Way”, Wall Street Journal
The Journal deciphers the computer models behind hurricane forecasts, with simple infographics.
“The 10 most mind-boggling Hurricane Michael visuals”, The Washington Post
A nerdy but quite catchy perspective on the phenomenon.
