2020
Interactive: Days over 100°F to become more common across US, Hispanics more exposed to ‘killer’ heat
Category: Best visualization (small and large newsrooms)
Country/area: United States
Organisation: Univision
Organisation size: Big
Publication date: 17/07/2019

Credit: Amaya Verde, Javier Figueroa, Ana Elena Azpurua, David Adams
Project description:
This interactive project shows how heat waves are becoming more frequent nationwide. The analysis of data from the Union of Concerned Scientists revealed that Hispanic communities will be especially affected.
Impact reached:
This project was extremely imporant in that using the data from the Union of Concerned Scientists we were able to show how hispanic communities will be affected by global warming. Hispanics majorities and pluralities live in counties that will have temperatures rise to dangerous levels in the coming years to the warming of the earth. This is visually conveyed in our work.
Techniques/technologies used:
We used d3 maps and scroll telling techniques to show the effect of changing temperatures in the coming decades. We also used javascript and csv to create an interactive graphic that shows what the average temperatures will be per state if there is no action or slow action to reverese the effects of global warming in these communities.
What was the hardest part of this project?
The hardest part for this project was coming up with the way to show the changing temperatures per decade in an impactful way. We had the data from the center, but we couldn’t come up with a way to make the information impactful until we used d3 to paint the maps and see how incredible they looked. This gave way to use the scrolly telling technique to see the change in the country across the coming decades.
What can others learn from this project?
Although the piece is geared toward hispanics and how they will be affected, the impact of the maps can let others see how we are all affected in our country by global warming. The data was for the entire country and we visualized that in a very astonishing way.
Project links:
www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/infografias/2019/killer-heat-interactive/