Is this real storm data?

Yes — real reports from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.

No. The SPC reports file is fully key-less.

Should I use this for storm safety?

No — it's a display-only screensaver, not a warning system.

Yes — free, no download, in your browser.

Are tornado reports confirmed tornadoes?

Not necessarily. The SPC labels all reports preliminary, and they are listed as received. Official post-storm summaries are published separately in NOAA's Storm Data.

Why are reports clustered near towns and highways?

Reports depend on someone being there to see an event and pass it on. Populated areas and roads tend to generate more reports than empty land, so the map partly shows where people are.

What do the numbers for wind and hail mean?

Wind is the gust speed in miles per hour, and hail size is given in hundredths of an inch. Some wind values are unknown and marked UNK.

Severe Storm Reports Feed Screensaver

The Severe Storm Reports Feed screensaver maps real tornado, wind and hail reports from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. It is free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.

How the Severe Storm Reports Feed screensaver works

The saver reads real storm reports from NOAA's own published daily report file.

Each marker is a real tornado, wind or hail report at its real reported location.

The pipeline refreshes the reports on its own schedule.

No key is required for this key-less public endpoint.

How severe storm reports are collected

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is headquartered in Norman, Oklahoma, and is part of the National Weather Service within NOAA. It forecasts the risk of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes across the contiguous United States; warnings themselves come from local National Weather Service offices. The SPC also publishes daily lists of tornado, hail and wind reports.

Each daily list covers 1200 UTC to 1159 UTC the next day, and times are in UTC. Hail entries give size in hundredths of an inch, so 175 means 1.75 inches, and wind entries give gusts in miles per hour, with UNK where the speed is unknown. Each entry also has a location, county, state, coordinates rounded to two decimals and a comment. The comments show that reports come from varied sources, including National Weather Service staff, the public and social media.

The SPC labels all reports as preliminary. The unfiltered list is shown as received, so it can contain duplicates, while a filtered version is also provided. Reports reflect where someone was present to see and report events, so sparsely populated areas are under-represented. For post-storm summaries and statistics, the SPC points users to NOAA's Storm Data. It is a log of what was reported, not a full picture of what the storm did.

A worked example

A real tornado report from a real county appears on the map exactly at its real reported coordinates.

Settings & tips

Reports are real NOAA Storm Prediction Center data, not simulated weather.
Accent recolours the report markers.
The feed can be empty in quiet weather periods — that's real, not a bug.

Frequently asked questions

Is this real storm data?: Yes — real reports from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.
Is a key needed?: No. The SPC reports file is fully key-less.
Should I use this for storm safety?: No — it's a display-only screensaver, not a warning system.
Is it free?: Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
Are tornado reports confirmed tornadoes?: Not necessarily. The SPC labels all reports preliminary, and they are listed as received. Official post-storm summaries are published separately in NOAA's Storm Data.
Why are reports clustered near towns and highways?: Reports depend on someone being there to see an event and pass it on. Populated areas and roads tend to generate more reports than empty land, so the map partly shows where people are.
What do the numbers for wind and hail mean?: Wind is the gust speed in miles per hour, and hail size is given in hundredths of an inch. Some wind values are unknown and marked UNK.

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