Fast data visualization offline, with Atlas + Kepler.gl
By: Adam Koeppel
July 2019 is shaping up to be the hottest month on record, following a pattern of record high temperatures —the hottest June ever was recorded last month, and previous temperature records were set in July 2017, 2016, and 2015.
I wanted to see what the July 19–21 heatwave looked like across the Eastern United States. So I made a visualization with Kepler.gl.
First, I needed data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate.gov site. Their Climate Data Online Search page makes it easy to grab historical weather data from all over the world. I grabbed data for Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Then I combined the data sets and dropped them into Kepler.gl:
Now I had a visual of all the reporting weather stations, but I want to see the maximum recorded temperatures:
I want to make this a time-series visualization so we can see the heatwave unfold:
The last things to do is increase the size of the point data radius, so the data stands out:
And add a tooltip so I can mouse over weather stations and see recorded maximum temperatures:
Kepler.gl let me build this heatwave visualization in a few minutes, without writing any code. And since we integrated Kepler.gl with Mapbox Atlas, the on-premises version of the Mapbox platform, I created this visualization entirely offline.
With Atlas, weather forecasters and emergency responders can track dangerous weather events and create Kepler.gl visualizations on-premises or offline. If a heatwave knocks out power or communications they can still visualize weather extremes and help organize a response.
Kepler.gl for Atlas will ship as an included feature with Atlas Standard or Atlas Enterprise. Contact sales to start a free Atlas trial.
Adam Koeppel - Product Manager - Mapbox | LinkedIn
Visualizing the hottest month on record was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.