ArcGIS Living Atlas

USA Storm Reports Live Feed: Now Even Stormier!

When severe weather hits, the National Weather Service collects storm reports from observers around the country. These storm reports are used by many organizations to maintain situational awareness of weather threats to resources and infrastructure, or to validate things like insurance claims.

ArcGIS Living Atlas has included these storm reports in a live feed for many years. But based on the data, you’d think that the only severe weather in the USA are tornados, wind, and hail. We all know the USA has way more severe weather threats.

A recent upgrade to the USA Storm Reports layer now includes “local storm reports”, which expands the types of severe weather from 3 to 48 types.

storm reports old and new

Fifteen of these storm types have new, unique symbols that are colorblind safe and work on both light and dark basemaps. Shout out to Emily Meriam for these hand-drawn icons that create an incredibly intuitive map.

storm report symbols

Additionally, the age of the report has been included in a field “Hours Old”, making it easier to apply a time filter. The length of the “Comment” field was also increased to allow for the full description from the National Weather Service.

longer text fields

If you’re only interested in the most recent storm reports, the USA Storm Reports (Past 24 Hours) layer has a time query applied.

Lastly, remember that you can check the status of all weather-related live feeds from the Living Atlas Team on the Live Feeds Status Page.

About the author

Dan leads development of ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World environmental content, which includes information about Earth's land, ocean, atmosphere, and ecosystems. Prior to Esri, Dan worked at NOAA for two decades, leading data visualization efforts for research, communications, and education.

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