Is there a hurricane prediction map that can be integrated into PowerBI

Robin Wasserman 0

I want to integrate a hurricane prediction map into a powerbi visual based on addresses. Is there a map I can tap into?

1 answer

rbrundritt 18,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-05-31T15:37:45.11+00:00

Not with Azure Maps. You could import data from NOAA and do a spatial join on your address data in a database, and then add a property to each address, then display those addresses on a map in Power BI. Woth the Azure Maps visual in Power BI you could then overlay a weather layer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/power-bi-visual-add-tile-layer If you don't mind regularly updating your report, you could load the hurricane track GeoJSON file as a reference layer into the map.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/power-bi-visual-add-reference-layer?tabs=upload

https://github.com/WSJ/hurricane-helper
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Robin Wasserman 0 Reputation points

2024-05-31T16:01:27.4766667+00:00

Hi. Thank you so much for the guidance. I am wondering if you can provide a bit more detail to your response; I'm more of an intermediate-beginner than a super advanced user.

I have the address database imported into PowerBI. I am not sure what properly I would need to add to each address.

Also, if I am eventually using Azure Maps with an overlay, which PowerBI I map is suggested for the first part (i.e. 'then display those addresses on a map in PowerBI').

Also, is there a place where I can get specific instructions on how to create the weather layer using the NOAA data. I checked the NOAA site and I don't see a specific place to grab the URL.

Thank you!! :-)

rbrundritt 18,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-06-03T14:54:09.3466667+00:00

I assumed you would use the built in Map visual which uses Azure Maps: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/power-bi-visual-get-started

Doing what you are looking to do is a decent amount of work, much more than can be explained in a single forum post. On the data side, I would start at your database before the Power BI connection. I mentioned NOAA as I assumed USA was the focus, but if you need global coverage you would either need to tie into multiple weather services or look at a commercial weather service. If you use NOAA or other weather service, you will need to find an API that provides polygon areas for the predicted path. There are some opensource libraries out there that can assist with this, for example: https://tropycal.github.io/tropycal/install.html

From there, once you have the predicted polygon, you can create a view in your database of your addresses, and add columns for any information you want to add related to the hurricane (e.g. name, category...). As part of your query to fill the view in the database you can take the hurricane polygons and do an intersection test on the addresses, and populate the view with the intersected addresses and add the related intersecting hurricane. (You could also have this view have a unique ID for each address instead so that you don't have to copy all the address data, and then have Power BI do the join later).

You can then connect that view to Power BI. You can then display the addresses on the map as a bubble layer. If you have the category of the hurricane as a data column, and stored as a number, you could then use that to set the color and/or radius of each bubble. For example, large red bubbles for addresses impacted by category 5 hurricanes, and small green circles for category 1.

Depending on where you get the hurricane path data, you will have the polygon data in some form. You would want to convert this data to GeoJSON format and download this. You can then load this manually into the visual as a reference layer: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/power-bi-visual-add-reference-layer?tabs=upload

Alternatively, you could do server-side rendering to convert this data into a tile layer, and then connect this to the visual as a tile layer. This would allow you to keep the map updated automatically but would require more dev work to do. If you are using a commercial weather service, they may already have a tile layer you could pull in.

Optionally, if you haven't used a tile layer above, you could add the weather layer from Azure Maps to show the radar or clouds as an overlay as documented here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/power-bi-visual-add-tile-layer

Robin Wasserman 0 Reputation points

2024-06-03T15:27:10.0433333+00:00

This is super helpful - thank you so much! Yes, I was looking for global weather data and I see the logic for building this and yes, it appears not to be so "simple", but I do think it will be doable - - thank you.
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Is there a hurricane prediction map that can be integrated into PowerBI

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