May 09 2025
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UPDATE: Join us in July for the 2025 HURREVAC webinar series

By HURREVAC Support

SCHEDULE UPDATE: The 2025 HURREVAC Webinar Series will now take place from July 28 to July 31 due to unavoidable scheduling conflicts with the original May dates. In the meantime, we encourage users to take advantage of our new Quick Guide to HURREVAC videos and in-app training modules. Registration is open for the National Hurricane Program’s free annual HURREVAC webinar series. Government emergency managers are invited to join us each day from July 28 to July 31, 2025. New HURREVAC users who have not yet had an opportunity to get comprehensive training are strongly encouraged to attend. Returning HURREVAC users are also welcome to use this opportunity to refresh their skills and get the latest information about NOAA’s forecast products and services for the 2025 season. The four sessions will focus on these themes: You must register for each day you plan to attend. What to expect All sessions will go live at 2 PM EDT and run for approximately 2 hours. The first half of each session will be devoted to a presentation of hurricane-related concepts and walk-through of related tools in HURREVAC. After a short break, the second half of each session will be devoted to applied demonstrations and exercises. Follow the links in the list above to find more details about the topics that will be covered each day. This arrangement is intended to build concepts gradually through the course of the week, while mixing in opportunities to practice skills and ask questions. FAQ Please plan to join the webinars on a device with a stable internet connection and a screen that is large enough to resolve details of the HURREVAC workspace. We strongly recommend using a laptop or office workstation instead of a phone screen. You may simply watch the webinar, or follow along with the demos in your own HURREVAC account if you have a second screen. For those who are unable to attend the webinars (partially or entirely), or would like to review the material at a later time, recordings of each session will also be posted to the HURREVAC YouTube channel prior to the start of the next day’s session.

May 02 2025
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May 2025 updates

By HURREVAC Support

Improved opacity controls for evacuation zones When evacuation zones are turned on in HURREVAC, there are now two buttons on the opacity slider in Quick Layers Options: one for the fill and one for the boundary. By default, the fill is set at 50% opacity and the boundary is set at 20% opacity. Depending on what you are trying to analyze or display, it may be beneficial to adjust these levels. Below is a hypothetical example where we compare the storm surge inundation hazard alongside evacuation zones to help us consider which areas may need to evacuate. The zone outlines were made more prominent (100%) while the zone fill was adjusted to be more transparent (25%). This example also made the MEOW Surge brighter (100%) and layered it over the zones. But depending on the complexity of the outlines and default colors of the zones you are working with, other opacity and layering choices may work better. Note that changes made in Quick Layers are temporary (not associated with your user settings) so it is necessary to make opacity adjustments each time you use HURREVAC. Storm Simulator wind probabilities discontinued The experimental step that generated downstream wind products was discontinued on May 1, 2025 due to resource constraints. The removal of this optional step does not affect the rest of Storm Simulator. In other words, it is still possible to make a simulated storm track and forecast, just without map layers for wind probabilities or wind watches and warnings. All simulated storms with associated wind products that were saved prior to May 1, 2025, are still available.

Apr 24 2025
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Virtual Training: K0311 – Hurricane Readiness for Coastal Communities

By HURREVAC Support

Update: slides and other resources from this course are available at the NHC Outreach Resources page. The FEMA National Hurricane Program is pleased to announce the upcoming virtual delivery of K0311: Hurricane Readiness for Coastal Communities, scheduled for April 29–30, 2025, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. ET each day. This course is designed to enhance preparedness and response capabilities among emergency managers and public safety officials in hurricane-prone coastal areas. Delivered by subject matter experts from FEMA and the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the training covers hurricane hazards, forecast interpretation, decision-making tools, and best practices for operational readiness. Course details Continuing Education Credit Participants seeking credit through the National Disaster and Emergency Management University (NDEMU) (formerly EMI) must complete the following steps: This course is beneficial for both new and experienced emergency management professionals looking to strengthen hurricane preparedness and response strategies ahead of the 2025 hurricane season. Please share this opportunity with colleagues who may benefit from this valuable training. For questions, contact the National Hurricane Program team (nhp@fema.dhs.gov).

Nov 19 2024
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New Toolbox Behavior and other Updates

By HURREVAC Support

HURREVAC now highlights active selections in the Toolbox, which is located in the lower left corner of the workspace. For example, this behavior indicates whenever the Tropical Weather Outlook is turned on by default when the program loads. Other tools like Text Advisories, Evacuation Timing and Training are also highlighted when clicked and their respective windows are open. Tools that open from the right side panel – Reports, Storm Surge (SLOSH) Explorer, and Storm Simulator – are also highlighted in the same way when you click on them. The right side panel now has a slightly different look, which removes the tabs at the top and only shows one tool at a time. It is still possible to switch between these three panel-based features using the toolbox. Other recent program changes Tropical Weather Outlook: storm icons are shown for all systems except the one that is actively selected (the ‘working’ storm). The TWO is beneficial for situational awareness, but we also recommend turning off the TWO layer when focused on tracking a particular storm unless you want to show its track in relation to other areas of potential development. Wind watches and warnings: improved caching now lets new information populate on the map without needing to restart the browser. This layer is often published shortly after the other advisory text products, so there can be a period of a few to several minutes where the HURREVAC map does not yet show a wind watch/warning line to match the text. Deterministic winds for JTWC areas of responsibility: added an exception to the recent program changes to show the 64kt (typhoon or cyclone) winds on the map throughout the 5 day period when applicable, as that threshold is explicitly forecast in JTWC advisories. The deterministic wind timing report still limits specific results for the 64-kt threshold to 3 days in all areas. Note to users in South Carolina: the state’s latest Hurricane Evacuation Study (HES) data has been implemented in the program during recent weeks and months. This includes new Evacuation Zones and clearance times in the Evacuation Timing window. New HES documents for the Resources tab are coming soon.  

Nov 04 2024
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Time change reminder for HURREVAC users

By HURREVAC Support

The recent change from daylight saving time to standard time means that products from the National Hurricane Center and other forecast agencies are available one hour earlier. These changes are automatically reflected in HURREVAC, but users tracking late-season tropical activity should be aware of the following times. Regular (complete) advisories are now issued at 4 a.m., 10 a.m., 4 p.m., and 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. (In Central Standard Time: 3 a.m., 9 a.m., 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.) Intermediate advisories are issued at 1 a.m., 7 a.m., 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. EST while watches and warnings are in effect. (In CST: Midnight, 6 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m.) Tropical Weather Outlooks are issued around 1 a.m., 7 a.m., 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. EST. By default, HURREVAC’s time display matches the system setting of your computer or device. There is no need to change any HURREVAC settings to account for the end of daylight saving time unless you manually set a custom time zone (UTC offset) in User Preferences.