An Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

It's three weeks from Election Day 2012 and their are plenty of interactive maps out there for a person to click on swing states until they're blue in the face -- or, if you're of a different political persuasion, red in the face.  One of my favorite sites is run by Dave Leip -- appropriately named "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections."

Dave Leip's site has been around since the 90s.  It has had interactive user-generated information for Presidential elections since 2004. The site allows you to predict what you think will happen in the Presidential race, as well as each Senate and Gubernatorial race.  You can also make a prediction on each primary contest. All of these can be updated at any time until the election.

First you choose who you think will win each state red or blue (or third party), and then in a separate map you can choose your confidence level:

A confidence map on Dave's site.

Darker states rate as "solid"; lighter as "lean".  Grey states count as toss-ups.  Each person puts in whatever they'd like. 

Wait wait, you say? The colors are backwards?

Yep, that's right.  The reds and the blues are backwards.  Dave designed the site before the 2000 election, when "red states" and "blue states" took off in the national lexicon.  Dave used the color schemes used in some other parts of the world where "red" = "liberal" and "blue" = "conservative."

The great thing is that after a number of people enter their predictions, the site aggregates the predictions and gives a pretty good middle of the road prediction on where things may stand.

Compiled predictions of all users of Dave's Atlas as of 16 October 2012.

Plus it keeps track of where the aggregation has been in the past, broken down by confidence:

Aggregate history for the Republican Primary predictions.
(Romney=green, Gingrich=blue, Santorum=orange, Perry=tan, Paul=yellow, Tossup=grey)

On top of this there is historical data going way back to Washington in 1789 and historical electoral college calculators also going all the way back. You can use an electoral college calculator with the correct number of historical votes to see what happened, or what might have happened. There is county-level data going back to 1964, plus all sorts of other, state-level data.

County-level 1976 data. Note the concentration in Georgia, home of Jimmy Carter.

Plus, there's all sorts of polling information. But, to be honest, there's another polling site I like much better.

It's a wonderful site, full of more information than I can share here.  Go check it out.

Carolina: Just One State in the SportsNation

The Carolina Panthers designed a new logo last week.  It's their first logo update since they founded the franchise back in 1993 and played their first NFL season in 1995.  It's a big difference...

Old logo on the left (1993-2012), New logo on the right (2012-present)

The font choice is a bigger change.  The Zubaz-era font has been tweaked to something very bland. Someone has tamed the X-treme panther of the 90s just a bit too much.

Top:  Xtreme 1990s boom-economy font.  Bottom:  Unremarkable 2010s post-recession font.

Gah. The font geek in me is a fan of neither. The panther scratch marks on some of the letters in the new font don't help much. If one could somehow sum these fonts together and take their average, you might have something worth putting in a logo. 

At least it's not teal.

But this blog is about maps, not fonts or sports team logos.  Let's get to the relevant maps.


ESPN's SportsNation performs daily and weekly polls. Though online polling isn't useful for, just as an example, accurate political polling, it is thoroughly useful for entertainment value. And ESPN does a darn fine job of it.  Here's the Carolina Panthers logo question:

This question is only a screen capture.  You can't vote here.

After you vote, it performs some cross tabulations on the answers, and provides a handy map of the most popular answer by state, the District of Columbia, or the rest of the world.

North Carolina is keen on the Panthers' new logo.  Everyone else says "Meh."

Best yet, you can hover over the state to see more detailed results.

Some questions get very regional results.  In 2008, the Seattle SuperSonics were relocated to Oklahoma and renamed the Oklahoma CityThunder.  Recently, there has been rumblings that the NBA would consider going back to Seattle.  ESPN captured sentiment in a poll.

The Pacific Northwest wants the SuperSonics back.  Oklahoma City wants to keep their Thunder.

I doubt the Thunder would return to Seattle; however, the regionality of the "false" responses in the Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas might show some underlying lingering fears of them returning or, perhaps, thoughts that Seattle doesn't deserve a team.

Personally, I think that the NBA seems hollow without the Sonics in Seattle.  It would be like the NFL not having the Browns in Cleveland.

What Goes Up...

UPDATE (845p, 23 Sep 2011):
Here's the latest map projecting the landing.  Estimated reentry time:  1210a CDT on 24 September ± 2 hours.

ORIGINAL POST:

Tonight the UARS satellite comes crashing back down to earth.  As of late afternoon on 23 September, it is projected to come down around 1100p ± 3 hours. The Center for Orbital Reentry and Debris Studies keeps abreast of the latest projections for where the satellite will reenter the atmosphere.

Each tick mark represents a five-minute increment. The entire four-orbit run shown above, represents the three-hour uncertainty period.  This uncertainty period has changed and shifted as more data becomes available. Last night's projections had it coming down just west of South America around 800p CDT with a 12-hour uncertainty period.  (And, therefore, last night on their site there were many more orbits shown.) 

However since then it has slowed more than predicted.  Changing its reentry time and the likely place of reentry to the areas shown above.

The debris field may be up to 500 miles long, with some two dozen or more pieces big enough to survive reentry and hit the Earth.  Areas near the point of reentry should be treated to quite the light show. 
At 630p CDT, it's over the South Pacific Ocean, beginning its curve northward toward Central America and Florida.  (See real-time images here.)

But what we really love is artist's renderings and graphical representations.  Here's a youtube video from a firm called AGI that shows how all this might take place:

Finally, you all should know a little bit about the satellite itself:

UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) was launched in 1991 to better understand chemical constituents of the atmosphere and atmospheric photochemistry and transportation.  One of its first studies was how Mount Pinatubo's eruption carried its sulfuric acid and other volcanic gases throughout the atmosphere. 

 
From NASA's UARS Science page:

The satellite was launched in 1991 by the Space Shuttle Discovery. It is 35 feet long, 15 feet in diameter, weighs 13,000 pounds, and carries 10 instruments. UARS orbits at an altitude of 375 miles with an orbital inclination of 57 degrees. Designed to operate for three years, six of its ten instruments are still functioning. UARS measures ozone and chemical compounds found in the ozone layer which affect ozone chemistry and processes. UARS also measures winds and temperatures in the stratosphere as well as the energy input from the Sun. Together, these help define the role of the upper atmosphere in climate and climate variability.

Since some of its final orbits pass over North America, it's worth keeping an eye on the latest updates to see if you can watch the debris pass overhead.

Collective Mapping and Knowing Which Way to Run the Bases

I've taken a recent liking to OpenStreetMap.  OpenStreetMap, known often simply as OSM, is the wikipedia of mapping -- essentially, an exercise in collective mapping.  OSM is a worldwide, user-created map that can be edited by anyone.  It is then rendered by various different mapping engines, such as Mapnik, which is my current favorite.  The results can be viewed from openstreetmap.org or imported easily into various GIS software such as ArcMap, and used for many types of personal products.  The information is public domain, so there's no concerns about having to worry about map copyrights of a background Google or Bing or Yahoo map when making you're creating your own maps.

Since the information is user-driven, the level of information varies from place to place.  Many areas have decent levels of input, but some parts of the developing world need serious additions.    This is a Mapnik rendering of the area around the Cathédrale Notre Dame in Paris.

[Click on any map for larger, full-sized image.]
 

Central Paris

 Many roads, natural boundaries, and other features are imported from government data, including much of the US Census Tiger shapefiles.  However, much of the additional editing is done by users. 

If you have a large scale color plotter -- or even if you can print out several 8 1/2 x 11 sheets -- I find that OpenStreetMap is especially good as a physically-in-your-hands highway map.  Not only are the highways clearly labeled, but they're color coded by type of highway using standardized Tiger Census Feature Class Codes (CFCCs) so that you can tell whether that US-shielded highway is a divided, limited-access highway, an expressway with access to local roads at-grade, or a backwoods two-lane barely-paved road where you'll decelerate to 25 mph for every small town.   (Since this is a wiki project there's always a chance that something may be vandalized, but it's not like you can add an interstate highway without someone noticing.)

Highways around Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

 As you can see from the above maps, there are extensive tags that have been approved, far beyond the highways, streets, and natural and political boundaries.  There are amenities such as scenic viewpoints, museums, public restrooms, walking paths, ferries, military facilities, conservation areas...  the list goes on and on.

Natural areas around Jenny Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Most importantly, collective mapping can provide valuable pieces of information.  One of my favorite user edits is Fenway Park.  Now there's no excuse if you've just hit a line drive up the middle and you have no idea which way you should go.

Fenway Park.  Note the one-way arrows on the footpath marking the bases. 

I highly recommend playing around with OSM.  Drawing buildings is soothing in its own special way.  The tools are easy to use, and there are beginners guides for those just starting out and helpful hints on best pratices.   Before you know it, you'll have added detail to half your hometown. 

You're Going to Make (a Map) After All

I've been on a 1970s groove as of late -- possibly due to Hulu's recent addition of the first three seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show to its offerings.  With Minneapolis as its setting, the show highlighted life in the Twin Cities in the early part of the decade.

The then-and-now factor is worth noting.

The tallest building in the Twin Cities in 1970 -- which is when The Mary Tyler Moore Show first aired -- was the Foshay Tower, built in 1929. The Quest Building and Minneapolis City Hall were built in 1932 and 1909 and came in second and third place.  You can see these all in this shot from the opening credits, as Mary drives into town in her white Mustang.

The Foshay Tower is on the left (the "St Paul" sign is pointing to it), the Qwest Building (at the time known as the Northwestern Bell Building) is in the middle behind and slightly to the right of the overpass below Minneapolis's arrow, and the City Hall it the building that looks like a castle off to the right. 

The great thing about Google StreetView is that you can compare this to today.

The Foshay is still barely visible, in front of the IDS Center, built in 1975.  Everything else in the Mary Tyler Moore still is pretty well obscured.  But even though the exit ramp seems to have moved, the overpass toward which she is driving looks distinctly the same.

To give you an idea of what the Minneapolis skyline looked like back then, here's a 1975 photo from the Minnesota Historical Society. The Foshay Tower is on the left.  The big building in the center is the then-newly-built IDS Center.  The picture is probably taken from the top of City Hall.

Here is another view of the skyline in 1975.  Loring Park is in the foreground. The IDS Center is on the left and the Foshay is just to the right of it.

Compare this to the 2007 skyline.  Loring Park, where the above photo was taken, would be is just a bit to the left.  The IDS Center is still prominent, but the Foshay Tower is harder to find -- it's the shorter building, right in the middle of the photo.  Minneapolis, it seems, grew up.

[photo credit: Steve Lyon]

I suppose a blog post about Mary Tyler Moore on a map blog wouldn't be complete without a map to the statue of her on Nicollet Mall, right?

A flood in the middle of a drought.

More from the Atchafalaya...

The Army Corps of Engineers opened the Morganza Spillway last weekend, as I mentioned last week, flooding the Atchafalaya River basin over the course of the last several days.  The last time the river basin was flooded by the spillway opening was 1973.  Initially, crests this month were supposed to be as high as 1973 or higher.

However, for many places in the basin, such as Butte LaRose and Krotz Springs, flood crests are being revised downward and mandatory evacuations are being postponed.  There's a couple of reasons for this. 

First, there were simply fewer floodgates to the spillway opened in 2011 compared to 1973.  Fewer floodgates means less water. But the second reason is the ongoing drought in the south.

The Drought Monitor from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln identifies current drought conditions on a scale of D0 to D4, with D0 being a drought watch or having abnormall dryness and D4 being "exceptional drought."  They put out reports weekly, with online archives going back to January 2000.

Louisiana drought conditions, 5/3/2010.
D0 = yellow, D4 = brown
(Source: Drought Monitor)

On May 3, the Drought Monitor classified 95% of the state of Louisiana as at least D1 (moderate drought), and more than 40% of the state being at least D3 (extreme drought).  It's part of a general extreme to exceptional drought that has been ongoing for most of the late fall and winter.  Parts of Texas have seen the worst of the drought, but parts of Louisiana have seen their share as well, as you can see above.

Since then, the spillway has been opened. 

Louisiana drought conditions, 5/17/2010.
D0 = yellow, D4 = brown
(Source: Drought Monitor)

As of May 17, 21% of the state has no drought conditions.

It's not like southern Louisiana has received much rain in the past month to alleviate the drought. In fact, it's running four inches below normal for the last 30 days.


30-day Precipitation Deviation, 5/22/2011.
Orange is 3-4 inch rainfall deficit -- Red/Brown is 4-6 rainfall deficit
(Source: National Weather Service)

But when you open a spillway, whether it's Morganza into the Atchafalaya or Bonnet Carre into Lake Pontchartrain, it's going to solve your dryness issues. If you look closely, you'll see the May 17 map only shows drought recovery in those basins. 

This dryness has been slowing the extent of the water as the parched ground absorbs the water. In contrast, the 1973 spillway opening came on the heels of two weeks of rain.

When it absolutely, positively needs to have a map

Those people who know me personally already realize that I'm a big fan of cargo freight.  I have a extra-special fondness for shipping container freight, but I find air freight interesting too.  Add to this the simple fact that I've found a lot of FedEx related maps lately, and you get a post solely about FedEx.

FedEx is based out of Memphis, Tennessee, where it has its "superhub" at the Memphis International Airport.  It has a fleet of nearly 700 aircraft flying to almost 400 destinations.  And one extremely overwhelming distribution center.

The constant movement in these and other similar distribution centers are amazing.  Conveyor belts run everywhere, forklifts scuttle about, and you have to be on your toes that you don't get run over. These places are darn near hyperactive.

But on to the maps...

FedEx, with its famed overnight delivery service, runs 24-7. And with that 24-7 business, they have flights flying into their Memphis superhub and Indianapolis and Dallas regional hubs constantly. Here is a time lapse video of 25 hours of FedEx flights back and forth across in the continental US:, accompanied by a little acoustic Led Zeppelin.  Watch the timing of how almost all the planes are on the ground in Memphis at the same time to sync their delivery routes.

I find it a little ironic that a time lapse video of airplanes flying to Memphis is accompanied by Zeppelin singing a song entitled "Going to California", especially when there are both more appropriately titled groups and songs that mention flying into Memphis available.

It should be noted that this is Memphis, which is located in the South, where summer storms can wreak havoc on even the best run air traffic systems.  When storms develop, the orchestration of in-bound flights can look like a well-choreographed dance.

Part of FedEx's website has been devoted to demographic and sociological cartograms.  Cartograms are a different kind of map -- one where some variable, such as life expectancy or happiness rating or population, is substituted for land area in a map.  (For example, many people are familiar with cartograms from US Presidential elections.)

FedEx cartogram showing differences in R&D expenditures.

These cartograms on FedEx's site are some of the most dynamic collections of cartograms that I've seen in a long time. They display worldwide demographic data, usually three related topics at a time, morphing the world to show each set of data.  The data range over a wide range of topics as well -- from airline travel to mobile phone usage to coffee imports to education spending -- just to name a few. The demographics expressed within the project are fairly extensive and they are constantly adding more. 

Flip through them and you'll find a wealth of information.  The one drawback is that you need to hover over the unlabeled country to get specific information.  When the countries get distorted you may find yourself hovering over several likely candidates if you have a specific country you want to find.  But still, it's a wild method of displaying worldwide demographic differences.

One last comment about FedEx that appeals to the font geek in me.  Their logo is one of the most subtly creative logos currently in existence. The company created its own font in order to achieve a hidden extra something within the logo that adds to their brand.  See if you can find it.  If you can't, the answer can be found here.