Hazard Duty — Government Data Portals Help Report Extreme Weather

A weather and hazards viewer showing multiple data overlays from the evening of May 14, 2026. Image: National Weather Service.

Reporter’s Toolbox: Hazard Duty — Government Data Portals Help Report Extreme Weather

By Joseph A. Davis

Extreme weather season is coming. It always is. Fortunately, the National Weather Service is raining data. 

In fact, you might say that data is the weather service’s native language. It offers so much fodder for environmental journalists that we have to gush about it.

Here are some portals and pages that may get you to something useful, faster.

Map viewers show hazards, warnings, forecasts

We like this national map page (weather and hazards data viewer) because catastrophes are news. Switch on all the layers and sublayers, or just those that concern you, and watch it fly. 

It shows heat and cold events. But you also get nationwide hazards and warnings, which include all kinds of precipitation, as well as tornadoes. Wildfire smoke and storm surges? They’ve got you.

 

You can get relevant local info

from the people staring at the

local radar and rain gauges

in 122 local offices.

 

Before we get much farther, you need to know about another map page: weather forecast offices. You can get relevant local info from the people staring at the local radar and rain gauges in 122 local offices. 

No phone numbers, sadly. But to get local phones, go to this page and put in your ZIP. Its online pages guide you to things like local temperature and precipitation records. Never hurts to have a local contact in a pinch.

Forecasts? They’ve got ‘em. Start here for marine forecasts; wind speed forecasts; short-, medium- and long-term forecasts; cloudiness; you name it.

Useful overlap with NOAA agencies

It’s a good thing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, of which the National Weather Service is a part, is so thoroughly and gracefully integrated. (Too bad Trump administration fans of Project 2025 want to dismantle it.)

The National Weather Service data does overlap with other NOAA agencies, like the National Centers for Environmental Information. NCEI is more climate-focused, looking at medium-term phenomena like ENSO. Scientists are expecting a whopping big El Niño this summer. Brace for extreme heat.

Another window into the weather service data world is called NOAA Online Weather Data. Getting to NOWData is not intuitive — you have to access it through your local Weather Forecast Offices, mentioned above. It is good for local and historical information.

 

In this era of super-destructive

and year-round wildfires,

you want different tools.

 

In this era of super-destructive and year-round wildfires, you want different tools. The best smoke mapper is a tab on the multiagency AirNow database, which maps fires and smoke plumes. It updates rapidly, at least several times a day. 

Smoke has been getting worse in recent years (and decades) — and scientists are now finding that pollution from wildfire smoke is often more harmful to human health than the industrial pollution we have been trying to control all these years.

We advise that you always try to report not just the data, but the situation on the ground and how it affects real people. But if you are chasing tornadoes, wear a helmet and have an escape plan.

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 11, No. 20. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.