Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Another Map Tool

In summer 2021, I attended a family reunion that happened to coincide with when one of the IPCC reports was about to be released, so there was more conversation about the effects of climate change than at an average reunion. One cousin, who currently lives in Chicago and is probably five or 10 years from retirement, asked me where he should think of moving, with climate change in mind.

I had some thoughts about that, but this map, called movemap, would have been a good tool to know about back then. 

It allows you to set a number of different factors, and then gives you a map of the U.S. by county. No earthquakes, no hurricanes, no wildfires, at least somewhat progressive politically gives you this map, for instance:

The counties are color coded by housing cost, and that can also be used to filter your selection. Temperatures in summer or winter are also factors, as well as precipitation... but snow, specifically, is not. 

I do wonder a bit about some of the data, since the Twin Cities' suburban counties are shown as tornado-free while Hennepin and Ramsey Counties (the locations of Minneapolis and Saint Paul) are not. Which makes no sense, since we're all in the same immediate area and if any of those our counties have tornadoes, any of us can since the two cities are right in the middle of the seven. 

But it's a good exploratory tool to get you thinking about parts of the country you might not think about otherwise.


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