The Bridge

Real-time rainfall accumulation across CONUS at high resolution — 1, 3, 6, 24-hour, and multi-day blends. The product hydrologists, flood forecasters, and anyone working a flash-flood event reach for first.

Weather Prediction Center forecasts for 6hr through 168hr (7-day) precipitation totals. The reference forecast downstream products blend from — before you see what models say, you see what WPC calls.

Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow — 20,000+ volunteer observers reporting daily rainfall measurements. Ground-truth for radar QPE estimates, especially for the light rain, snow, and hail events that radar often misses.

The operational portal for river forecasts, flood guidance, and watershed hydrology — launched in 2024 to replace the legacy AHPS system. Thirteen regional River Forecast Centers feed into this national service, paired with radar QPE for flood warnings and seasonal water-supply forecasting.

National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center's daily snow depth, snow water equivalent, and snowfall analyses across the CONUS. Satellite and ground-observation blend. The snow analog to MRMS precipitation estimates — what hydrologists and water-supply forecasters watch through winter.

Weather Prediction Center's winter weather forecasting desk — probabilistic snow accumulation, freezing rain, and ice forecasts out to 72 hours. The national reference forecast for winter storms downstream products blend from.

The authoritative US drought map, produced by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in partnership with NOAA and USDA. Weekly categorical drought severity (D0–D4) at county resolution. The reference map every California reservoir, rancher, and climate writer cites.

National Centers for Environmental Information — NOAA's official climate data archive. Station-level temperature, precipitation, wind, and sunshine going back as far as 1750. Build custom reports for any location, any time range, any variable.

Every recorded tornado, severe thunderstorm, hurricane, blizzard, flood back to 1950. Searchable by event type, location, date range. Each record includes narrative, damage estimates, and fatality counts. The canonical source for severe weather research.

Iowa Environmental Mesonet archive — surface observations, wind, precipitation, plus the full NWS text-product archive going back decades. The database academics and forecasters reach for when reconstructing any specific weather event.

Explore tool for ERA5 reanalysis — custom maps and time series of any atmospheric variable, any location, any time from 1940 to present. The deep-archive companion to the daily anomaly maps on the Climate page.

Cameron Beccario's iconic interactive globe. Animated wind, ocean currents, waves, atmospheric chemistry, and surface pollution displayed as living streamlines. The visualization every meteorologist has bookmarked. Free, beautiful, mesmerizing.

Build custom reanalysis composite maps for any date range and any atmospheric variable, 1948 to present. The research tool meteorologists use when studying past events — you can generate "the 500mb height anomaly during the 2012 derecho" in two clicks.

The canonical dictionary of atmospheric sciences. Definitions, derivations, and references for every term in the field from adiabatic to zonal flow. Maintained by the American Meteorological Society.

NWS's free online meteorology curriculum — weather fundamentals through advanced topics: synoptic, severe, tropical, marine, mountain weather, radar and satellite interpretation. No registration, no account, just open and learn.

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research's long-standing real-time weather gateway. Dense, text-forward, comprehensive — radar, satellite, model output, forecast discussions, upper-air data, all the operational products researchers and working forecasters click into. Old-school in the best way.

The gold-standard state mesonet. 120 stations across Oklahoma reporting temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, soil moisture, and solar radiation every 5 minutes. Run by the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. The observational network every meteorologist cites as what dense surface observations should look like.

Kentucky's statewide mesoscale observation network, operated by Western Kentucky University. 70+ stations reporting 5-minute weather and soil data. One of the strongest regional mesonets east of the Plains.

Texas Tech University's mesonet covering West Texas and eastern New Mexico — 150+ stations across one of the most severe-weather-prone regions in North America. Dryline tracking, dust storms, supercell environments. Where storm chasers watch the plains.

Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes — the research group that defined modern atmospheric-river science. Deterministic IVT (integrated vapor transport), IWV, ensemble plume diagrams, landfall tool, ML forecasts, basin-specific views for the North Pacific, Northeast Pacific, and North Atlantic. The daily-driver page for AR-aware forecasters and Pacific routing.

Single-screen view: AR scale (Cat 1 weak through Cat 5 exceptional) forecasted at every landfall point along the West Coast over the next 7 days, ensemble-driven. The fast situational read — "what's about to hit, where, and how strong" — without having to interpret IVT plumes yourself.

NOAA's Volcanic Ash Advisory Center for Washington (covering the US and much of the Pacific). One of nine global VAACs. Issues advisories for ash clouds that threaten aviation and, for cross-Pacific shipping lanes, marine operations. Rare-event, high-consequence.

Global array of 4,000+ autonomous ocean profilers, cycling between surface and 2,000 m depth, reporting temperature and salinity every 10 days. The foundation of modern ocean reanalysis. Argo floats drift through Tony's routing lanes delivering the data under the ship.

Non-profit (Oceana + Google partnership) showing near-real-time AIS positions for tens of thousands of vessels worldwide. Originally built for illegal-fishing monitoring; also gives a rare public view of global cargo-shipping activity in the lanes Tony routes through daily.

Amtrak Engineering's public network of weather stations along the Northeast Corridor and other major routes. Real-time air and rail-head temperature — rail heat expansion causes buckling above ~130°F rail temp; cold contractions cause broken rails. The actual data that drives Amtrak's heat orders and speed restrictions. Rare glimpse into operational rail meteorology.

Federal Highway Administration's Road Weather Management Program — the federal authority on weather-related highway operations. Winter maintenance strategies, fog and visibility detection, snow and ice management, flash-flood response, and the surface-transportation weather tools state DOTs actually deploy.

California's real-time road operations map. Live traffic cameras, lane closures, chain controls updated every minute during snow season, changeable message signs, CHP incidents, and border wait times across every state highway. The map Californians check before any trip over the Sierra.

FHWA's national road-weather data portal — real-time observations from Road Weather Information Systems (RWIS) deployed by state DOTs across the country. Surface conditions, precipitation, visibility, and wind from roadside stations. The research-grade underlayer beneath consumer traffic apps.