# About Natural Disaster Map

Canonical HTML: https://naturaldisastermap.com/about

Language: English. All timestamps below are UTC.

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.

## Explore a changing planet

Follow earthquakes, wildfires, storms, volcanic activity, floods and droughts on one interactive globe. Search for a place, choose your layers, and open a report for more context.

## See the bigger picture

In Imagery, choose Natural or Infrared clouds for regional satellite views, or Clear Earth for a cloud-free background map. Your hazard layers stay selected. Infrared colors show cloud temperatures, not rainfall; rain radar and lightning are separate observations.

## Catch up with hourly briefings

Read highlights from available agency reports, with publication times and links to the original sources. Missing coverage and delayed updates are identified. A quiet or unavailable feed does not mean a place is safe.

## Explore beyond Earth

Discover the Moon through NASA imagery, then visit Future Moon, an imagined outpost-building experience. Its landscape and gameplay are illustrative, not a depiction of an operating lunar settlement.

## Understand what you see

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.

## Follow official guidance

Natural Disaster Map is an independent informational resource, not an emergency alerting service. For warnings, evacuation decisions and safety advice, follow your local authorities and the issuing agency. Data and imagery remain subject to their original publishers’ terms.

## 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.

## Source credits

- [NOAA National Weather Service](<https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-alerts>): Official U.S. watches, warnings and advisories.
- [ECMWF IFS open data](<https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/open-data>): Model wind forecasts. CC BY 4.0.
- [NOAA NHC / CPHC](<https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gis/>): Official tropical cyclone observations, tracks and forecasts.
- [NASA GIBS · NOAA GOES · JMA Himawari](<https://nasa-gibs.github.io/gibs-api-docs/available-visualizations/>): Regional natural-color and infrared satellite imagery.
- [EUMETSAT Meteosat · NASA](<https://www-cdn.eumetsat.int/files/2026-01/45173%20-%20Data_Policy.pdf>): Meteosat satellite imagery. CC BY 4.0; nighttime imagery includes NASA Black Marble.
- [USGS Earthquake Hazards Program](<https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/geojson.php>): Earthquake reports and updates.
- [USGS earthquake catalog (ANSS ComCat)](<https://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/comcat/>): Historical earthquake context.
- [USGS ShakeMap](<https://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/shakemap/>): Modelled earthquake shaking intensity.
- [NASA EONET](<https://eonet.gsfc.nasa.gov/>): Curated wildfire, storm and volcanic activity reports.
- [GDACS — EU Joint Research Centre &amp; UN OCHA](<https://www.gdacs.org/>): Flood, drought and tropical cyclone reports and agency alert levels.
- [GeoNames](<https://www.geonames.org/>): Place names and population context; proximity does not establish who was affected.
- [CIESIN · NASA GIBS — GPWv4](<https://doi.org/10.7927/H4HX19NJ>): 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)](<https://data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com/>): U.S. wildfire containment reports.
- [NASA FIRMS (VIIRS)](<https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/>): 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](<https://data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com/>): Mapped U.S. wildfire boundaries, updated as crews survey them. A spreading fire can be larger than the latest perimeter shown.
- [RainViewer](<https://www.rainviewer.com/>): 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](<https://nowcoast.noaa.gov/>): 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](<https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation>): 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](<https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/engage/open-data-services-software/earthdata-developer-portal/gibs-api>): Static background Earth imagery at globe scale; this terrain is not a current satellite observation
- [NASA LRO (LROC · LOLA) · NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio](<https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4720/>): 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](<https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright>): Base map — borders, places, roads and buildings
- [Peter Bird (2003) — PB2002](<https://doi.org/10.1029/2001GC000252>): Tectonic plate boundaries (optional overlay)

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