Joaquin In Rainbows

October 1, 2015 · by · in Chart, Colour, colour blindness, palettes, Uncategorized · Leave a comment

At the time of writing, the US media is tracking Hurricane Joaquin, and trying to predict whether it will make landfall in the US over the next few days.

There are lots of great visualisations, but one thing that this event does highlight is just how many different types of rainbow colour palette there are. There are different data sets, but many of these are being used to encode the same information, which can surely lead to confusion among the viewing public.

I can’t help that feel that the media pick some of these up because the bright colours catch the eye and drive clicks, rather than because they are the most informative.

The challenge is: how can we use these visualisations to best inform the public about weather risk? How can we avoid confusing people? Is that the media’s job?

I’ve found most of these by looking at the #joaquin hashtag.

[link to video] CQPV83XUcAAU-4z.mp4

Here is my favourite though

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