How it works

Every day you get five historic US tornadoes. For each one you read a one-sentence clue, then tap the map where you think it touched down. You score by how close your tap lands.

The round resets at midnight Eastern, and everyone in the world plays the exact same five storms that day.

Each tap is scored out of 100 by distance: land within ~10 miles and you bank the full 100. After that, points fall off fast at first, then flatten into a long tail, so an honest near-miss still scores while a wild guess on the wrong coast does not.

≤10mi = full · 50mi ≈ 55% · 200mi ≈ 25% · 500mi ≈ 5% · 1-point floor past 1500mi.

Then the stakes escalate: storms 1 and 2 count at face value, storm 3 is worth ×2, and storms 4 and 5 are worth ×3 — a perfect day is 1,000 points (100 + 100 + 200 + 300 + 300). The later storms carry tougher clues, so the points you can win climb right along with the difficulty.

Tornado strength is rated after the fact from the damage left behind. Storms before February 2007 use the original Fujita scale (F0–F5); everything since uses the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF0–EF5), which ties wind estimates to specific damage indicators. We label each storm with the scale that was in use on its date.

Every score gets a tier color, used the same way in your round, on the leaderboard, and in shared posts:

Each day has a leaderboard of the top 50 scores, with your own row pinned so you can always find yourself. Display names come from the first 7 characters of your email before the @, with a short suffix added if two players would collide.

Your streak counts consecutive days played. Miss a day and it resets. Replaying an older round is always welcome, but it does not change your current streak.

Visit /me for a 7-day chart of your daily scores, with each bar colored by the tier you earned that day.

• Zoom and pan the satellite map as much as you want before you commit.
• One tap drops your guess; tap again to move it.
• Changed your mind mid-tap? Drag away before releasing to cancel.
• Your progress is saved as you go, so a refresh will not lose your round.

Storms and details come from the NWS Storm Events Database (via the Storm Prediction Center) and NWS damage surveys. Future hurricane content will draw on HURDAT2, and measured wind speeds come from NSSL and University of Oklahoma research deployments.

StormGuessr is built around real tornado events, many of which caused deaths and devastating damage. Clue text and reveal facts reference fatalities and historical impacts factually and respectfully.

Photos and details come from public NWS damage surveys. If you find anything insensitive, tell us at stormguessr@gmail.com.

StormGuessr was built by Jason Robbins, a lifelong weather obsessive based in Massachusetts. Jason has spent decades watching radar loops, reading SPC outlooks like the morning paper, and arguing with friends about whether that wall cloud is rotating. In May 2024 he chased the southern Plains for the first time and got close enough to the Hawley EF3 to feel it. The kind of close that rearranges how you think about storms forever. This game came out of that trip. It's for the people who already love this stuff and the people who are about to.