Weather radar

RainViewer's composite of 1,200+ radars, a new frame every 10 minutes, drawn the way a weather map shows rain.

Where no radar reaches (the oceans, most of Africa, much of Asia and South America), NASA's IMERG satellite estimate fills in, in the same colors, a little fainter: it's about five hours old.

How to read it

The colors are RainViewer’s Universal Blue: pale to deep blue for light and moderate rain, yellow and orange for heavy, red for intense, pink and magenta for the strongest cores and hail; snow runs from pale cyan to deep blue. Echoes weaker than 15 dBZ are left out, since most are clear-air returns, birds and insects rather than rain. Radar is drawn dimmer on the night side.

For the whole globe the picture is about 20 km a pixel; zoom in and sharper tiles fill in, down to about 0.6 km. Where no radar reaches, satellite rain fills in, a little fainter: over Europe, Africa, the Atlantic and the Middle East from EUMETSAT H SAF’s MTG product, about half an hour old; elsewhere NASA’s IMERG, about five hours old. Near the edge of radar coverage the two can disagree, since storms move on in five hours.

Questions

How often does the radar update?

RainViewer publishes a new frame every 10 minutes and the app checks every 5, fetching only new frames. The readout gives each source’s time.

Why is there no radar over the ocean?

A ground radar sees a few hundred kilometers at most, so the oceans and much of Africa, Asia and South America have none: the satellite estimates are there instead. R steps through radar with satellite rain, radar only, and off.

Sources

RainViewer, RainViewer
Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG, GPM IMERG Early Run), NASA

The same view as a link: livex.earth/?clouds=0&radar=1&imerg=1&sats=off&launches=0&aurora=0&storms=0&severe=0&fires=0&quakes=0&lightning=0&events=0&snow=0&tsunami=0

Drag to look around, scroll to zoom. Settings live in the URL, so any view can be shared.

Symbols

GDACS impact — low, medium, high: the humanitarian impact expected (hazard, people exposed, vulnerability), not the event's size.

Data

Earth NASA Blue Marble / Black Marble, GIBS (VIIRS true colour, Black Marble nightly, GOES GeoColor), EUMETSAT EUMETView (MTG GeoColour, Meteosat-9 IODC Natural Colour Enhanced); zoomed in closest, Sentinel-2 cloudless (s2maps.eu) by EOX IT Services GmbH, contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2025 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; 2016, CC BY 4.0)
Moon NASA SVS / LRO
Clouds NOAA/NESDIS GMGSI; Himawari-9 (JMA) via NASA GIBS, live over East Asia and the west Pacific
Satellites CelesTrak
Launches The Space Devs, SpaceX via CelesTrak
Aurora, Sun image, space weather, ionosphere NOAA SWPC (GloTEC, D-RAP)
Meteors Global Meteor Network; fireballs and close approaches NASA/JPL CNEOS, ephemerides JPL Horizons
Buoys NOAA OSMC, NOAA NDBC (incl. DART); Argo floats: the International Argo Program, via NOAA OSMC
Storms, floods, wildfires, eruptions GDACS, NHC
Volcanic ash EUMETSAT Ash RGB (Geo Ring, MSG 0° and Indian Ocean), via EUMETView
Sea temperature GHRSST MUR (JPL, NASA PO.DAAC), via NASA GIBS
Land temperature NASA LANCE VIIRS (NOAA-20, NOAA-21, Suomi NPP) and MODIS (Aqua, Terra), via NASA GIBS
Soil moisture NASA SMAP Level 4 (GMAO), via NASA GIBS
Chlorophyll-a NASA OBPG MODIS (Aqua, Terra), via NASA GIBS
Winds, waves NOAA/NCEP GFS and GFS-Wave (WAVEWATCH III), via NOMADS
Ocean currents NASA OSCAR v2.0 (Earth & Space Research), via PO.DAAC
Coral bleaching heat stress NOAA Coral Reef Watch degree heating weeks (5 km, v3.1), via NOAA STAR
Aerosols NASA LANCE VIIRS Deep Blue optical depth (NOAA-20, NOAA-21, Suomi NPP) and OMPS aerosol index (Suomi NPP), via NASA GIBS
Flood extent NASA LANCE VIIRS global flood product, via NASA GIBS
US volcano alert levels USGS Volcano Hazards Program (HANS), with its positions; type and last eruption from the Smithsonian's Volcanoes of the World
Fires NASA FIRMS, EUMETSAT MTG Fire Radiative Power; US perimeters NIFC WFIGS
Quakes USGS, with its ShakeMaps; EMSC for Europe and the Mediterranean
Lightning NOAA GOES GLM, EUMETSAT MTG Lightning Imager
Snow & ice NOAA IMS, NSIDC
Smoke NOAA HMS
Radar RainViewer; satellite rain EUMETSAT H SAF H40B (MTG, EUMETView) and NASA GPM IMERG (GIBS)
Tsunami NOAA NTWC/PTWC, NWS
Severe weather NOAA NWS, Storm Prediction Center (outlook, storm reports); Europe: MeteoAlarm, data by EUMETNET members (CC BY 4.0)
ISS telemetry NASA ISSLive
ISS model NASA / Michael D. Carbajal (NASA 3D Resources)
Borders, country names, states and provinces Natural Earth (public domain)
Places Natural Earth's populated places (public domain) and GeoNames via Open-Meteo; what's nearest your location: Wikidata (CC0)

URL parameters

`view`	`fixed` · `sunrel` · `orbit` · `moon` · `track`
`track`	what to follow: `iss`, `tiangong`, `satgus` (Mark Rober's Space Selfie satellite), `launch`, `sunrise`, `moonrise`
`lat`, `lon`	viewer position (fixed) or offset from the subsolar point (sunrel)
`period`, `inc`	orbit period (hours) and inclination (°)
`dist`	viewer distance in Earth radii; 0 = orthographic
`mag`, `rot`	size and rotation (°)
`wait`	seconds between redraws (default 60)
`time`, `speed`	ISO start time; clock multiplier
`clouds`, `lights`, `grid`, `markers`, `label`	`0` or `1`
`borders`	Country borders (Natural Earth), the disputed and undefined ones dashed, and once zoomed in, the countries’ names and the states’ and provinces’ lines, off by default (key `B`)
`terminator`	The day–night line (Sun on the horizon), with the twilight band’s edges dashed: the Sun 6° up and 6° down, off by default (key `Z`)
`stars`	`1`, `0`, or `photo` (dimmed like a camera exposed for sunlit Earth)
`sats`	`all` (Starlink + named), `featured`, or `0`
`aurora`, `storms`, `fires`, `quakes`	`0` hides that layer (keys `A` `H` `F` `E`)
`buoys`, `buoy`	Buoys on the globe, off by default (key `Shift+B`); `buoy=46026` opens that buoy’s window. Click a buoy to open it.
`meteors`	The last day’s meteors (Global Meteor Network), recent fireballs and the coming close approaches (NASA/JPL), off by default (key `Shift+M`)
`iono`	Ionosphere wash: `tec` electron content (GloTEC), `drap` HF radio absorption (D-RAP), or `0` (key `Shift+I`)
`lightning`, `events`, `snow`	lightning, GDACS floods/wildfires/eruptions with NASA's flood map and USGS's US volcano alert levels, snow and ice (keys `L` `D` `I`)
`sst`	Sea temperature: `temp`, `anomaly` (El Niño, marine heatwaves; `1` means this), or `0` (key `O`)
`lst`	Land surface temperature (VIIRS, MODIS): `auto` the afternoon’s by day and the night’s by night (`1` means this), `day`, `night`, or `0` (key `Shift`+`K`)
`soil`	Soil moisture (SMAP L4): `surface` the top 5 cm (`1` means this), `root` the root zone to 1 m, or `0` (key `Shift`+`W`)
`chl`	Chlorophyll-a (MODIS Aqua, Terra), the last eight days: `1` or `0` (key `Shift`+`O`; off by default)
`aerosol`	Aerosols: `aod` VIIRS optical depth (`1` means this), `index` the OMPS UV aerosol index, smoke and dust, or `0` (key `Shift`+`Y`; off by default)
`waves`, `wavesrc`	Wave height and direction (NOAA GFS-Wave, WAVEWATCH III) as trails that travel with the waves, coloured by height: `1` or `0` (off by default); folder holding its `latest.json`
`currents`, `currentsrc`	Ocean surface currents (NASA OSCAR, a daily mean, two or three days behind) as trails carried by them, coloured by speed: `1` or `0` (off by default; key `Q` cycles waves → currents → both → off); folder holding its `latest.json`
`coral`, `coralsrc`	Coral bleaching heat stress (NOAA Coral Reef Watch degree heating weeks), drawn within 35° of the equator: `1` or `0` (key `Shift`+`R`; off by default); folder holding its `latest.json`
`ash`	volcanic ash: EUMETSAT's Ash RGB, and GDACS's eruptions in a window (key `Shift`+`A`; off by default)
`radar`, `smoke`, `tsunami`	RainViewer radar, NOAA HMS smoke, NOAA tsunami alerts (keys `R` `Y` `Shift+T`)
`imagery`	`live` GOES and MTG pictures by day, `daily` yesterday’s VIIRS when zoomed in, `painted` neither; with `live` or `daily`, the newest night’s lights when zoomed in (key `Shift+P`; the older `truecolor=0/1` still works)
`severe`	Severe weather: NWS warning polygons and the SPC day-1 outlook (US), MeteoAlarm's warnings (Europe) (key `X`)
`imerg`	With the radar, satellite rain where there’s no radar: EUMETSAT H SAF (MTG) over Europe and Africa, NASA IMERG elsewhere (`R`’s middle step turns it off)
`relief`	terrain lit by the real Sun, from NOAA ETOPO 2022 (key `Shift+E`); 0 shows NASA's fixed shaded relief
`reliefscale`	terrain relief strength, 0.1–5 (default 1)
`isslive`	NASA ISS telemetry panel: `track` (while tracking the ISS), `1` (always) or `0` (key `Shift+L`)
`isscam`	`1` opens the camera in the ISS telemetry: the station from 120 m above, its solar arrays posed from the live telemetry, and the Earth below (the wheel zooms it, 30–120°)
`firehours`	show fires detected within this many hours, 1–24 (default 12)
`launches`	`0` hides launch mode (key `U`)
`bodies`, `bodyscale`	Sun and Moon on/off; enlarge their discs (1 = true size)
`fps`	`1` shows the frame-rate display (key `~`)
`feeds`	`1` shows the data-feeds dashboard: each source's last update and next check (key `Shift+U`)
`cloudsrc`, `satsrc`	folders holding each `latest.json`