Article snippet: Hurricane Irma is already historic. Its winds, which have held at 185 miles an hour for 24 hours, are the strongest ever recorded in the open Atlantic Ocean. Irma might not grow any stronger, but its claim to history surely will as it moves west, toward an increasingly likely landfall in the United States. Already, Irma has dealt a major blow to the islands of the northwest Caribbean. The best source for information on Irma is the official forecast from the National Hurricane Center. But for better or worse, there’s a lot more information on the internet. Much of it was difficult to find a decade ago, but now it seems hard to avoid on social media. There are upsides and downsides: The richness of the data can help communicate uncertainty, but in isolation, individual data points can be misleading. So here’s a guide to following the storm smartly. The National Hurricane Center issues full advisories on Irma every six hours, with intermediate advisories between when hurricane watches and warnings are in effect, as they are now. You can’t go wrong with the National Hurricane Center forecast. It synthesizes all of the available information. Its most widely known report is the official five-day forecast, which shows the projected path of the storm’s center of circulation and the surrounding “cone of uncertainty.” The cone is useful, but even it doesn’t capture the full range of possible outcomes. For one, the effects of Irma extend far from the storm’s center. Right n... Link to the full article to read more