Extreme Weather Data and Visualization Hub

Supported by Midwest Agrivoltaics for Resilient Communities funded by the National Science Foundation, and Midwestern Regional Climate Center, in partnership with the NSF Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Convective Storms

Lead: Dan Chavas · Professor · Purdue University, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

What is this site?

Interactive maps and explorers for extreme weather. Site development is ongoing, new updates expected regularly. Send feedback with bugs or requests.

Dashboards

County map beside a matrix of severe-weather hazards by severity, cells shaded red through yellow with per-decade trend arrows

United States County-Level Multi-Hazard Extreme Weather Dashboardnew — in beta

“What does extreme weather look like where I live?” A single county’s hazards on one page — currently hail, tornado, thunderstorm wind and derecho, with more to come — by severity level, with info about how often they occur and how they are changing. Click any county on the map to load its record.

Tropical Cyclones

Historical Event Viewer
Hurricane best-track points colored by category with wind-swath outlines along the U.S. East Coast

tcviewer.org: IBTrACS TC Track & Wind Footprint Map Explorerexternal site

Maps of all global tropical cyclones: individual storm, day in history, month in history, and date range
Hurricane Helene's storm-total rain shaded by county across the southeastern United States, with the storm track overlaid

tcviewer.org: Storm Hazards & Impacts by Countynew — in betaexternal site

“What did this hurricane do, and where?” Every U.S. tropical storm and hurricane since 2004, county by county: wind, rain, storm surge, inland flooding and tornadoes, plus deaths, injuries, damage and power outages. Click any county for its details.
Historical Trends
Global track-density map on a 5-degree grid with tropical-cyclone maxima over the western Pacific and eastern Pacific

Climatology & Trends — 5° grid

Paired climatology and trend maps on a 5° global grid, each with its zonal profile alongside, plus annual, seasonal and month-by-month series. Track density, storm count, ACE, intensity, central pressure and storm size, by basin, 1980–2025 from IBTrACS. Click a basin to zoom in.

Severe Weather wind, hail, tornado, derecho, extreme heat, heavy rain, snow, freezing rain

Historical Event Viewer
Derecho wind-gust reports strung west to east across the Midwest, colored by gust speed

Historical Severe Weather Events

Maps of any severe thunderstorm and derecho day from the historical record
Historical Trends
County-level U.S. hail climatology, deep red through the central Plains fading to pale yellow at the coasts

Climatology & Trends — county level

Paired climatology and trend maps at U.S. county resolution, with annual and month-by-month series. Hail, tornado, thunderstorm wind and derecho days, extreme heat and heat index (ERA5) and heavy rain (PRISM), plus station records: snowfall (GHCN-Daily), freezing rain (airport stations nationwide) and peak wind (Indiana).
The same U.S. hail climatology binned into coarse 2-degree grid squares

Climatology & Trends — 2° grid

Paired climatology and trend maps of hail, tornado, thunderstorm wind and derecho days, extreme heat and heat index, and heavy rain, binned into a regular 2° grid.

Climate The average year, and El Niño & La Niña

World map of average July precipitation, with the rain band of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and the Asian monsoon, and streaks showing the 850 hPa winds

EarthVis: Climate and Extremes Through the Yearnew — in beta

Animated maps of the average year, 1996–2025, for 30 ERA5 fields: temperature, precipitation, clouds, radiation, winds and pressure, and severe-storm ingredients. Also included are global tropical cyclone activity, U.S. hail, tornado, wind and derecho days, and an incomplete worldwide tornado map. Choose month by month, a season, the annual mean, the size of the seasonal cycle or the month of the peak, on a world map, a globe you can spin or a regional view, with wind arrows on top. Click anywhere for its seasonal cycle, and export any map or animation as a PNG, MP4 or GIF for teaching.
Global map of December temperature in El Niño years minus climatology: warm along the equatorial eastern Pacific and over Alaska and western Canada, dotted where significant

El Niño & La Niña Impacts — global gridnew — in beta

How a typical year, season or month differs in El Niño or La Niña years (an ENSO year runs June–May), beside its climatology: ERA5 temperature, precipitation and snowfall worldwide, global tropical cyclone activity, and U.S. hail, tornado and wind days and derecho events. The years used come from NOAA’s Relative Oceanic Niño Index, shown with every event marked.