On: The eye of hurricane Matthew passes directly over ...

[LeifCarrotson]

Latitude, not longitude - the length of one minute of longitude changes with your distance from the equator.

Also, I am not sure how that's relevant to NOAA?

[Spooky23 → LeifCarrotson]

NOAA is part of the Commerce Department and Oceanic is part of their name. An important consumer of the data are entities who navigate the sea and air.

Both constituencies use knots and nautical miles.

[kqr → Spooky23]

> An important consumer of the data are entities who navigate the sea and air.

You make it sound like birds and fish check in with the NOAA before planning migrations.

Edit: and that they're really picky about units of measurement.