earth
A living globe of wind, weather, ocean and space data — the serene data-art visualization that becomes indispensable once a storm forms
Website: https://earth.nullschool.net/ · Source: GitHub · Type: Personal data-art project by Cameron Beccario, kept running for over a decade
Why it exists
Weather maps are tables pretending to be pictures. earth is the opposite: it renders real forecast data as flowing particles — wind as thousands of drifting streams over the globe — and makes atmospheric physics legible at a glance. What began as a 2013 art project became public infrastructure: journalists use it during hurricanes, sailors and surfers check currents and waves, teachers show the jet stream bending, and during wildfires the Chem mode shows smoke moving in real time. All of it runs in a browser with no account, no ads and no tracking.
Main features
- Air mode — animated wind at any altitude (10 hPa to surface), temperature, relative humidity, precipitation (3-hour accumulation), CAPE, cloud water, misery index.
- Ocean mode — animated surface currents and significant wave height/period from OSCAR and WAVEWATCH III.
- Chem mode — CO, CO₂, SO₂, NO₂ and particulates (PM1/2.5/10) from GEOS-5 FP — watch smoke plumes and pollution drift.
- Particulates, Space & Bio modes — dust extinction, aurora probability (NOAA SWPC), bleaching alert areas.
- Time travel — scrub through past forecasts and dates; HD mode, grid toggle, position mode for your coordinates.
- Data-honest UI — every layer cites its source and update cadence (GFS updates 4×/day, etc.).
- Open source — the original renderer is MIT-licensed on GitHub; classic and current builds documented.
Who it's for
- Anyone tracking a storm, typhoon or smoke plume who wants to see the flow, not read a radar table.
- Sailors, surfers, pilots and cyclists — currents, waves and wind at altitude, one click deep.
- Teachers and students: the best free visualization of global atmospheric circulation ever made.
- Data-viz developers: the code is a classic, and the site's restraint (no ads, no accounts) is a design lesson.
How it compares
- Windy.com — the full-featured commercial forecaster (models, layers, routing); earth is the serene, ad-free big-picture view.
- Wunderground/Apple Weather — point forecasts for your umbrella; earth explains why the umbrella.
- NASA Worldview / earthdata — raw satellite layers for scientists; earth is the narrative version.
- StreetComplete — the same spirit of loving public data on the other side: earth reads the planet, StreetComplete writes it.
Notes
- Data is forecast/model data (GFS, OSCAR, GEOS-5, WAVEWATCH III, SWPC), not radar — check the timestamp panel; GFS refreshes every 6 hours.
- The globe is interactive but the site has no accounts, no history and no sharing accounts — links encode the current view (
?date=…&type=…). - Runs fine on phones; HD mode wants a decent GPU.
- If the main site ever struggles, classic.nullschool.net serves the original build.
Useful links
- Official site: https://earth.nullschool.net/
- About the project & data sources: https://earth.nullschool.net/about.html
- Source code: https://github.com/cambecc/earth
- Classic build: https://classic.nullschool.net/