October 04, 2012 --  Seeing where hurricanes have hit and how often is one of the best ways to bring home a powerful hurricane preparedness message. A NOAA website, Historical Hurricane Tracks, lets users insert their zip code and see a map that contains over 150 years of Atlantic hurricane tracking data. The site also contains global hurricane data from as far back as 1842.

the Historical Hurricane Tracks website, www.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes, includes tropical cyclone data and information on coastal county hurricane strike data through 2011 while also providing links to detailed reports on the life history and effects of U.S. tropical cyclones since 1958. In addition, the site features global tropical cyclone data.

The site's popularity with the public was evident in 2011 as Hurricane Irene bore down on the U.S. East Coast. Tens of thousands of people used Historical Hurricane Tracks to compare the National Hurricane Center's projected path of Irene with past storms.

Developed by the NOAA Coastal Services Center in partnership with NOAA's National Hurricane Center and the agency's National Climatic Data Center, Historical Hurricane Tracks allows users to search by place name, storm name or year, or latitude and longitude points. With the search results, users can generate a map showing the track of the storm or storms accompanied by a table of related information.