The Earth Watch
Natural disasters, now and in the past. Pick a place with the circle or by country and region, then scroll from one disaster to the next and compare with an earlier year. Sources
2,540kkm² in the circle
28.0°N 84.0°ECentre
Sudden disasters
Earthquakes
Every earthquake of magnitude 5 and above recorded by the US Geological Survey's global network since 1990, about 1,500 a year. Most follow the plate boundaries; the deadly ones are shallow and near cities. Learn more
Now and then
Counting…
Source: Earthquakes: USGS · Public domain (US Geological Survey)
Sudden disasters
Tropical cyclones
Hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones from the agencies' best tracks gathered by NOAA in IBTrACS, since 2000: every storm that reached 34 knots, one point where its wind peaked, with its category. Recent seasons are provisional until the agencies finalise them. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Cyclone tracks: NOAA NCEI IBTrACS v04r01 (Gahtan et al. 2024) · Public domain (NOAA; CC0 on data.gov), citation asked: Gahtan et al. 2024, doi:10.25921/82ty-9e16
Sudden disasters
Floods
Floods that GDACS rated orange or red since 2000, from news-based detection and river models. Monsoon South Asia and East Africa come back every year. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Alerts: GDACS (European Commission JRC, UN OCHA) · GDACS terms (Mar 2025) set no reuse limit, only disclaimers; EC reuse policy: reuse with the source acknowledged
Sudden disasters
Wildfires
Large wildfires that NASA's Earth Observatory flags from satellite fire detections and agency reports, since 2017. Each point is an event on one day; a burning region shows as a cluster. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Events: NASA EONET · Public domain (NASA)
Sudden disasters
Fires and burnt areas in Europe
Burnt areas mapped from satellite images by the European Forest Fire Information System, for the EU, its neighbours, the Middle East and North Africa. Each point is a fire of 100 hectares or more; years compare by hectares burnt. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Burnt areas: Copernicus EFFIS · Copernicus Emergency Management Service: free and open, source acknowledged (EC reuse policy)
Sudden disasters
Large fires worldwide
Burn scars mapped worldwide from NASA's MODIS satellites by the EU's Global Wildfire Information System (GlobFire): each point is one fire of 1,000 hectares or more, with its start, end and hectares burnt. The archive stops in 2020, so it shows the past, not today; African savanna and Australian bush fires dominate. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Burnt areas 2002-2020: GlobFire, EC JRC GWIS (Artés et al. 2019) · Copernicus Emergency Management Service: free and open, source acknowledged; the producers' data record is CC BY-SA 4.0 (PANGAEA) and Earth Engine lists CC BY 4.0
Sudden disasters
Volcanic eruptions
Volcanic eruptions that GDACS rated orange or red since 2000, by their threat to people nearby. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Alerts: GDACS (European Commission JRC, UN OCHA) · GDACS terms (Mar 2025) set no reuse limit, only disclaimers; EC reuse policy: reuse with the source acknowledged
Sudden disasters
Landslides
Landslides reported in news and science since 2007, with deaths where known, and NASA's daily hazard nowcast, which flags slopes where recent rain makes a slide likely, as in Nepal's monsoon. NASA stopped compiling reports in 2019: recent years look empty, not safer. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Landslide hazard: NASA GSFC LHASA; Landslides: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, landslides.nasa.gov · NASA open data; NASA permission to use, reproduce and distribute; keep the notice, mark changes
Slow disasters
Droughts
Droughts that GDACS rated orange or red, from the European Commission's drought observatory. A drought lasts months; the point marks its centre when it was alerted. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Alerts: GDACS (European Commission JRC, UN OCHA) · GDACS terms (Mar 2025) set no reuse limit, only disclaimers; EC reuse policy: reuse with the source acknowledged
Slow disasters
Tree cover loss
Every 30 m pixel of tree canopy that disappeared, by year, from Landsat satellite analysis. Loss is not always deforestation: fires, storms and plantation harvests count too, but the arcs of loss along the Amazon's roads are clearing for cattle and soy. Learn more
Now and then
Yellow = early 2000s, red = recent years
All years: early yellow to recent red. Or one year at a time, in pink: flip between 2025 and the year you compare with.
Source: Tree cover loss: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA (Hansen et al. 2013) · CC BY 4.0
Slow disasters
Coral bleaching heat stress
Degree Heating Weeks add up how far, and for how long, the sea has been warmer than the hottest normal month over the last 12 weeks. Corals bleach from about 4 and start to die from 8. The layer covers the open ocean too: read it where reefs are. Learn more
Now and then
Degree Heating Weeks 4 (pale) to 20 (dark red); open ocean too, not only reefs (T-004)
Flip between now and the same day in another year to see what changed. Images go back to 2003 (years before the live server's range load more slowly).
Source: Coral heat stress: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, served by PacIOOS · Public domain (NOAA), credit requested
Slow disasters
Sargassum
Mats of floating sargassum seaweed show up in satellite colour as a high floating algae index. Since 2011 a belt forms each year from West Africa to the Caribbean, smothering beaches and reefs when it lands. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Sargassum: USF AFAI via NOAA AOML · Free use and redistribution (NOAA AOML dataset licence)
Slow disasters
Sargassum on beaches
NOAA's daily Sargassum Inundation Risk rates every stretch of coast in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico by how likely sargassum is to land there, from satellite images and currents. Lines show the stretches at High (orange) or Warning (red) risk. The archive starts in July 2025, so it compares with last year only. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Sargassum beaching risk: NOAA AOML, CoastWatch Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico, USF · Unknown (no licence stated on the files; as a US government work it is probably public domain)
Slow disasters
Sargassum seen by people
Sargassum photographed and shared by people on iNaturalist across the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the tropical Atlantic, each with its date, place and photo licence. Reports grow every year as more people use the app, so counts say where people saw it more than how much there was. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Reports: iNaturalist contributors · Per observation and photo: CC0, CC BY or CC BY-NC (each row keeps its own; other licences dropped)
Slow disasters
Sargassum measured on the coast (Puerto Rico)
CARICOOS weighs the sargassum caught each week in traps at 14 coastal stations around La Parguera, Puerto Rico: kilograms per metre of trap. A measured series, small in area, to set beside the satellite index and NOAA's beaching risk. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Sargassum: CARICOOS · Free use and redistribution, not for legal use (CARICOOS ERDDAP dataset licence)
Slow disasters
Red tides
Samples of Karenia brevis, the Florida red tide alga, at 100,000 cells per litre or more: enough to kill fish and irritate lungs on the beach. Florida, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi since 2000. Sampling effort changes from year to year (very few samples in 2022 and 2023). Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Red tide: NOAA NCEI HABSOS · Public domain (NOAA)
Slow disasters
Harmful algal blooms
Harmful algal bloom events recorded by national monitoring programmes in the IOC-UNESCO database: toxins in shellfish, fish kills, closed beaches. Reported about a year late, so the latest year is always thin. Learn more
Now and then
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Source: Algal blooms: HAEDAT, IOC-ICES-PICES, via OBIS · CC BY 4.0
Slow disasters
Sea surface temperature anomaly
Today's sea surface temperature minus the usual for this day of the year, from a daily 1 km blend of satellites. Wide red patches that last are marine heatwaves, which drive coral bleaching and fish die-offs. Learn more
Now and then
Blue = colder than usual, red = warmer
Flip between now and the same day in another year to see what changed. Images go back to 2002.
Source: SST anomaly: NASA JPL GHRSST MUR via NASA EOSDIS GIBS · Public domain (NASA)