About Natural Disaster Map
Natural Disaster Map shows agency reports as the agencies publish them, with their times. It is not an alerting service: for warnings, follow your local authorities.
How reports are ranked
First: GDACS Red, USGS PAGER red or orange, M 7+, NHC or CPHC major hurricanes (Category 3+). Next: GDACS Orange, PAGER yellow, M 6+, NHC or CPHC hurricanes. Then the rest, in turns: USGS (M 4.5+), GDACS, NASA EONET. In the first two, new reports lead ongoing ones (GDACS droughts and floods begun over 7 days ago), newest agency start first, and the first new report in those two tiers is featured. A hurricane counts only if GDACS reports the storm too. Fire detections never lead; we add no score of our own.
Reports can be preliminary, delayed or revised. Forecasts describe possible future conditions; they are not observations. Satellite fire detections are not confirmed wildfires. Nearby population describes proximity, not people affected. Attribution and timestamps help you judge each report.
Space weather
Follow solar and geomagnetic activity alongside events on Earth. Space-weather highlights use NOAA’s published scales and alerts, which describe different effects from terrestrial weather.
NOAA space weather scales ↗Embed the globe
Paste an iframe into your page. The embed keeps every agency’s credit and the line “Not an alerting service — follow official warnings.”
Newsroom
Tropical cyclones only, in Simple motion, with a bar naming each agency and when it last updated. Add lat, lng and zoom to open on a region.
<iframe src="https://naturaldisastermap.com/embed?layers=cyclones&motion=simple&bar=1" width="100%" height="420" loading="lazy" title="Tropical cyclones — Natural Disaster Map"></iframe>Classroom
Every hazard, with the legend open and the leading reports with each agency’s reason, in type a back row can read.
<iframe src="https://naturaldisastermap.com/embed?preset=classroom" width="100%" height="600" loading="lazy" title="Natural hazards — Natural Disaster Map"></iframe>Cite a report
Name the agency and its time first: the agency published the record; this site retrieved it.
[Agency name], [report title], [observation or origin time, UTC]; agency revision [time, if supplied]. Retrieved by Natural Disaster Map [time, UTC]. Original: [agency URL]. Report: https://naturaldisastermap.com/event/[event-id]. State whether the record is archived or preliminary.Source credits
With credit to the scientific agencies and organizations that make this information available. Original source links remain on individual reports. Data and imagery remain subject to their original publishers’ terms.
- NOAA National Weather Service
Official U.S. watches, warnings and advisories.
- ECMWF IFS open data
Model wind forecasts. CC BY 4.0.
- NOAA NHC / CPHC
Official tropical cyclone observations, tracks and forecasts.
- NASA GIBS · NOAA GOES · JMA Himawari
Regional natural-color and infrared satellite imagery.
- EUMETSAT Meteosat · NASA
Meteosat satellite imagery. CC BY 4.0; nighttime imagery includes NASA Black Marble.
- USGS Earthquake Hazards Program
Earthquake reports and updates.
- USGS earthquake catalog (ANSS ComCat)
Historical earthquake context.
- USGS ShakeMap
Modelled earthquake shaking intensity.
- NASA EONET
Curated wildfire, storm and volcanic activity reports.
- GDACS — EU Joint Research Centre & UN OCHA
Flood, drought and tropical cyclone reports and agency alert levels.
- GeoNames
Place names and population context; proximity does not establish who was affected.
- CIESIN · NASA GIBS — GPWv4
Optional population density: 2020 estimates adjusted to UN WPP 2015 totals, people per km² of land. Approximately 1 km source grid; covers 85°N to 60°S. Missing data does not mean zero people. This is population context, not a count of people affected. CIESIN (2016), CC BY 4.0.
- NIFC — Wildland Fire Interagency Geospatial Services (WFIGS)
U.S. wildfire containment reports.
- NASA FIRMS (VIIRS)
Worldwide satellite heat detections from the past 24 hours — the strongest few thousand. These are thermal signatures, not confirmed wildfires: a detection can also be a gas flare or agricultural burning.
- NIFC — Interagency fire perimeters
Mapped U.S. wildfire boundaries, updated as crews survey them. A spreading fire can be larger than the latest perimeter shown.
- RainViewer
Rain radar where observations are available, refreshed every few minutes while the layer is on. Detail is limited: zooming in beyond regional scale enlarges the image without adding finer observations.
- NOAA nowCOAST — National Weather Service
Lightning strike density over the past 15 minutes, from the NLDN and GLD360 networks. Covers the Americas, the Atlantic and the Pacific (25°S–80°N, 110°E east to 0°); not Europe, Africa or most of Asia; a dashed edge marks the coverage limit on the globe.
- NOAA SWPC — Space Weather Prediction Center
Current geomagnetic storm (G), solar radiation storm (S) and radio blackout (R) levels, shown from level 1 upward. These are NOAA's reported conditions, not forecasts or a map of affected locations.
- NASA GIBS — Blue Marble
Static background Earth imagery at globe scale; this terrain is not a current satellite observation
- NASA LRO (LROC · LOLA) · NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
The Moon view’s surface: the CGI Moon Kit color map, made from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera mosaic (Arizona State University), with relief from LOLA laser-altimeter elevation. A static visualization, not a measurement image; its lighting does not show the current lunar phase.
- OpenStreetMap contributors · Protomaps
Base map — borders, places, roads and buildings
- Peter Bird (2003) — PB2002
Tectonic plate boundaries (optional overlay)