NOAA tracks the frequency of cyclones

Courtesy: NOAA

Monday, September 9, 2013, 2:11 PM -

High above the oceans, NOAA's GOES satellite tirelessly tracks cyclones.

This "eye in the sky" scans the planet every few minutes, giving meteorologists an unprecedented ability to track severe weather.

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center has taken this information and used it to assemble track data for 11,967 tropical cyclones spanning from 1842 to 2012 into a database.

The results are summed up in the stunning image above.

Pre-satellite data was garnered from ship reports, meaning that some large 19th century storms were probably overlooked.

Here's more from NOAA: 

"By coloring how many times any storm track overlapped another, certain patterns arise in the density of storms affecting a given area. Cyclone tracks overlapped the most in the western Pacific and Bay of Bengal (India), where typhoon season never ends since waters are always warm enough to sustain cyclone formation. The frequency of track overlaps is much lower in the Western Hemisphere than in the Eastern Hemisphere."

You can learn more about historical hurricane tracks on the NOAA website.