User blog:Jnlt215/2017 landfalls map

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be a prolific series of extra content that I've created as part of the HHW community. In my blog, I will make content outside of articles, whether it would be graphics, storm updates, and any other fun cyclone-related stuff created by me. I hope you'll enjoy.

Before we jump right in, I would like to point out on a personal note that I am a very avid fan of image processing and editing; although I seldom make graphics on the scale of the image that is the subject of this article, I have to admit that my skills are pretty fantastic when I do. I'm also inspired by the Force Thirteen YouTube channel's season animations and other graphical content on the channel, and I occasionally dream about making my own content based off their style. So I decided to create something based on an idea in my mind: not a season summary track map, but a map purely containing all the landfalls made in one particular season. This is quite a unique perspective that few, if any, have ever thought about it; I figured it would help give people a sense of the total land impact from the season.

The highlight of the first of such maps will be the hyperactive, destructive, and infamous 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. The map below contains dots each signifying landfalls made during that season. The dots are colored based off Wikipedia's Saffir-Simpson scale color scheme depending on maximum sustained wind-speeds during landfall (Ophelia's landfall dot is gray, which indicates an extratropical landfall). Each dot also has a letter that indicates the storm that made the given landfall (ex. H=Harvey, I=Irma, etc.). Landfall data compiled from the National Hurricane Center's Tropical Cyclone Reports.



Summary:
 * Out of a total of 17 named storms during the season, 9 made at least one landfall, with an additional storm (Ophelia) making an extratropical hurricane-force landfall.
 * Irma's three landfalls in the Lesser Antilles were the most powerful ever recorded in the region's modern history.
 * Irma made the most landfalls for a single storm in the 2017 season with 7 in total, a whopping 5 of them as a Category 5.
 * Harvey made two landfalls in Texas within hours of each other, one at 130 mph and the other at 120 mph.
 * Harvey also ended a record 12-year absence of major hurricane landfalls in the United States.
 * Hurricanes Franklin and Katia made landfall near the same location in Mexico within a month of each other.
 * 2017 marked the first instance of three hurricanes making Category 4 landfalls on U.S. territory in a single season.
 * Ophelia made a rare extratropical landfall in the British Isles, becoming the first to impact the region since Katia of 2011.

Hopefully, I can have the motivation to make more maps in the same style for other seasons in the future. For now, this is jnlt215, signing off.