Author: HURREVAC Support

HURREVAC will incorporate updated products from the National Hurricane Center for the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season. The Peak Storm Surge forecast graphic is added to the Storm Tools bar to coincide with the operational issuance of the product this year. The new icon is located between “Watches and Warnings” and “Potential Storm Surge Flooding.” Peak Storm Surge forecasts were issued experimentally for three storms in the 2022 season: Fiona, Ian, and Nicole. Those products were added to the HURREVAC archive for training purposes. This product visualizes the peak surge inundation values listed in the public advisory, and will be available when storm surge watches or warnings are in effect for the mainland United States, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Read more in the updated User Guide page (login required). Starting this year, the Tropical Weather Outlook is extended to 7 days. The 7-day formation probability replaces the 5-day probability. A 2-day probability will continue to be issued. When applicable, outlook areas will also contain the associated invest identification number (for example, “AL91”). Potential Storm Surge Flooding maps will now be available for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This product will continue to be issued when storm surge watches or warnings are in effect along the Gulf and Atlantic coastlines of the United States. Unlike those areas, any maps issued for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will account for water level rise resulting from nearshore breaking waves. Watch and warning information will only be listed in the public advisory, which is found in the “Text Advisories” window in HURREVAC. To reduce duplication and potential for errors, NHC will no longer list watch and warning information separately in the forecast advisory. The Potential Track Area (Error Cone) size is updated to reflect NHC forecast performance for the 2018-2022 period. The cone definitions for the Eastern Pacific basin also changed slightly. Read the NHC’s 2023 product update (PDF) for more details about these changes. More improvements are in store for the HURREVAC workspace in 2023. Developers are working on two main projects: in-app notifications and enhancements to points of interest. Check back by June 1 for another announcement with more details. Sign up for the 2023 HURREVAC training webinar series to learn more about these updated products and features during the week of June 12.

During February, the HURREVAC team implemented many enhancements to the layout, functionality and performance of reports. These changes are also documented in updates to the HURREVAC user guide. The 2023 season version of HURREVAC is under development, so check back this spring for more announcements about new features and virtual training opportunities. NEW: Three reports – Wind Timing Report for a Location, Probabilistic Wind Timing Report, and Evacuation Timing Report – have new logic that can return a value of “TBD.” This indicates that the latest advisory products are in the process of coming out but the probabilistic wind timing is not yet completely available. “TBD” will briefly show up near the advisory issuance hour when the newest track and text products appear, but the graphical wind probabilities and wind timing graphics still show data for the previous advisory. If “TBD” is displayed, rerun the report in approximately 10 minutes to take advantage of the latest data. The report descriptions were also updated to reflect his change. NEW: Added messaging in the report data table to let the user know when a report is in the process of being generated, the report generation has failed, or when the report has finished running but there are no affected areas for the particular advisory and scope. NEW: All report descriptions can be collapsed by clicking the arrow in the header. Click the icon again to expand the text. NEW: All reports contain a direct link to the relevant user guide page. Click the question mark to get help. CHANGE: The search bar for multi-location reports is now located above the report description. Previously, the search bar was between the description and report table. FIX: A user’s scope selection (Base State, Base County, etc.) is retained and applied to new reports generated in the same HURREVAC session. FIX: Corrected a bug that caused Probabilistic Wind Timing Report to fail if there were no points of interest (POIs) stored in the user profile. FIX: Adjusted column spacing so report values are visible in all display modes. Also improved report visibility when the left and right side panels overlap. FIX: Improved performance of some multi-location wind reports.

HURREVAC has a new look for 2023. This update features new color options for the interface, redesigned tool icons and more options for viewing latitude and longitude. Display Mode Display Mode is a new tab in the User Preferences window. There, users can choose one of these options to set as a default: Light Dark Blue Classic (this is how HURREVAC has looked for the past few seasons) Click a tile to preview the option. The selected display mode is used whenever HURREVAC is opened. To try out another look, just reopen User Preferences. The program has the same features and functionality with each color theme, but the layout may change slightly in certain parts of the workspace. The display mode does not affect the colors used for the map layers, storm tracks, or other live weather data. New Icons HURREVAC also has dozens of revamped icons to go with the new display modes. This is the second phase of a project to optimize the user interface. The redesign began with the new HURREVAC logo and toolbox icons in 2022. The new look is rolling out for the storm tools, map tools and utilities bar icons in 2023. All tools and layers will work the same way as before. Hold the pointer or mouse over an icon to see its name in a tooltip. Latitude and Longitude Settings HURREVAC users now have more control over the appearance of latitude and longitude on the tracking map. These options are found in the Map Settings tab of User Preferences. By default, Latitude and Longitude Display is set to Lines Only. To add 1-degree tick marks between the lines, choose Lines and Tick Marks from the list. If you want a clean map view, choose None. These line and tick mark settings are applied to whatever basemap is displayed, which is still a separate selection. Previously, the 1-degree tick marks were only available by choosing the Classic basemap. Users who want the Classic appearance together with tick marks will need to make this one-time selection in User Preferences. We encourage you to explore the new Display Modes, Map Settings and basemaps to create your custom HURREVAC workspace. The HURREVAC team is already working on more upgrades and new features ahead of the next hurricane season.  If you have feedback about the changes described in this post, comments about how you used the program in 2022, or suggestions for what you would like to see in the future, please reach out to us at support@hurrevac.com.