Temperature
Each pill is the air temperature 2 metres above the ground, from a weather forecast model. Drag the timeline to see the next three days hour by hour.
Learn
What you are looking at, why it behaves that way, and where the data comes from.
Wind
The moving streaks show which way the wind blows 10 metres above the ground, and the colours show how fast. Drag the timeline to watch the next three days.
Rain
Where a national weather service shares its radar, you see rain measured minutes ago, with a two-hour replay. Everywhere else the layer shows how much rain the forecast…
Storms
Active tropical cyclones with where they have been (solid line), where they are forecast to go (dashed line), the cone of possible tracks, and the area of damaging winds.
Satellites
Each pill sits on the point of the Earth directly below a satellite, with its height. The line shows one full orbit: solid behind the satellite, dashed ahead. Press…
Events
Earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 and above from the past week, plus floods, wildfires, volcanoes and droughts reported by the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System…
Tectonic plates
The Earth's outer shell is broken into about 50 plates that move a few centimetres a year. The lines are the plate boundaries; their colour shows how many earthquakes…
Wind belts
Averaged over time, the Earth's winds form belts circling the planet. The labels show where they usually are; the moving streaks show what the wind is actually doing…
Earth's magnetic field
The Earth behaves like a giant, slightly tilted magnet. The short needles show the direction of its magnetic field at the surface, coloured by strength, and the card…
Climate zones
Weather is what happens today; climate is what a place is usually like over decades. This map sorts every place on land into a climate zone using its average…
A city's year
The chart shows a typical year around this city: the average daily high and low for each month, for the surrounding square kilometre, averaged over 1981–2010. The gap…
Winds through the year
Slide through the months to see the average wind for each one. Some winds stay steady all year, like the trade winds; others reverse with the seasons, like the monsoon…
Sea temperature
The colour of the sea is its surface temperature, measured from space by several satellites and checked against ships and buoys. Warm water drives the weather above it…
El Niño and La Niña
Every few years the surface of the tropical Pacific turns unusually warm (El Niño) or unusually cool (La Niña). It is the strongest natural swing in the climate from…
Day, night and the seasons
The shaded half of the globe is in night. The Earth's axis is tilted, so through the year the Sun climbs higher and the days grow longer in one hemisphere while they…
Aurora
The glowing ring is NOAA's forecast of where aurora may be visible soon. Aurorae light up in rings around the magnetic poles when charged particles from the Sun crash…
Volcanoes
Volcanoes form where molten rock, magma, reaches the surface. Most sit along plate boundaries, above all in the Ring of Fire around the Pacific; a few sit over hot…
Highs, lows and isobars
The lines are isobars, joining places with the same air pressure at sea level. They show the highs and lows that steer the weather: the wind circles around them and…