Download and plot essential climate data — get

Retrieves Atlantic basin hurricane data since 1851 from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration HURDAT Atlantic Hurricane Database Re-analysis Project. https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/Data_Storm.html

Usage

get_hurricanes(use_cache = TRUE, write_cache = getOption("hs_write_cache"))

Arguments

use_cache: (boolean) Return cached data if available, defaults to TRUE. Use FALSE to fetch updated data.
write_cache: (boolean) Write data to cache, defaults to FALSE. Use TRUE to write data to cache for later use. Can also be set using options(hs_write_cache=TRUE)

Value

Invisibly returns a tibble with the annual HURDAT hurricane data since 1851

Details

get_hurricanes invisibly returns a tibble with NOAA's annual North Atlantic revised HURDAT hurricane data since 1851. The returned object includes Year, and number of named storms, hurricanes, major hurricanes (S-S scale 3-5), Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE), and U.S. hurricane strikes.

ACE is an index that combines the number of systems, how long they existed and how intense they became. It is calculated by squaring the maximum sustained surface wind in the system every six hours that the cyclone is a Named Storm and summing it up for the season. Please refer to above website for details.

References

HURDAT North Atlantic Hurricane Database Re-analysis Project, Hurricane Research Division, NOAA https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/Data_Storm.html.

Data from: https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/comparison_table.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accumulated_cyclone_energy

Author

Hernando Cortina, hch@alum.mit.edu

Examples

# \donttest{
# Fetch from cache if available:
hurricanes <- get_hurricanes()
#
# Force cache refresh:
hurricanes <- get_hurricanes(use_cache=FALSE)
#
# Review cache contents and last update dates:
hockeystick_cache_details()
#> <hockeystick cached files>
#>   directory: /home/runner/.cache/R/hockeystick
#> 
#
# Plot output using package's built-in ggplot2 settings
plot_hurricanes(hurricanes) # }