Maybe movies like The Day after Tomorrow or The Perfect Storm (or, uh, Sharknado?) just don’t do it for you. Special effects and cutting-edge CGI are impressive and all, but you want your natural disasters more…natural. More real. More viscerally terrifying!
Well, fear not (or rather, fear a lot). The Earth is full of reminders that it is much, much bigger than we are and cares not a whit for our personal safety—consider earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, cyclones, fires, landslides, and, oh yeah, did I mention earthquakes? Here are feeds from the scientists who study the most destructive forces on the planet. The end may or may not be nigh, but when it comes, you’ll hear it from these people first.
Follow Lucy Jones on Twitter
The USGS and Caltech scientist has spent most of her professional life imagining Los Angeles collapsing into a big pile of rubble, and now she’s telling the world about it. She’s been feted as “possibly the most popular seismologist on Twitter”—and competition’s stiff, let me tell you—for her tireless work studying the San Andreas fault and explaining the importance of earthquake preparedness to the public. Last year, she helped the city of Los Angeles craft a comprehensive plan for the Big One, pro bono. And, she watched San Andreas, that cinematic opus, and live-tweeted everything the movie got wrong (and the few things it got right).
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Follow @NASAHurricane and check out their Flickr
NASA isn’t a one-trick space pony—they study hurricanes, too! The feed provides the statuses of tropical storms and typhoons from Hilda to Guillermo, and tons of data and links to delicious, delicious visualizations. Plus, their Flickr provides satellite’s-eye views of the large swirly cloud patterns we call hurricanes. Of note: the albums dedicated to Sandy and Katrina.
Play with Accenture’s Disaster Visualization map
Data scientists at the consulting firm Accenture have plucked data from FEMA and created a map of the U.S., color-coded by the number of disasters that have occurred in each county in the last 43 years. Mostly, the results are what you’d expect: LA’s struggled with fires for the past decades; tropical storms have hit the New Orleans area hard. But apparently, there’s also been a lot of flooding in Pembina, North Dakota.
Follow Jayson Prentice on Twitter
Kansas-based meteorologist Jayson Prentice lives in Tornado Alley, and as such posts a steady stream of videos and photos of terrifying funnel clouds descending from the angry, angry sky. These photos are punctuated by severe weather data, maps, and occasionally, pictures of beautiful Kansan sunrises.
Read the Eruptions blog and follow it on Twitter
May we suggest Erik Klemetti’s WIRED-hosted blog? The Denison volcanologist takes news of the world’s bubbling, steaming lava fountains and provides fascinating context on what to expect when they’re erupting.
