How it works

Every day you get five famous extreme weather and nature events from around the world: hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, and more. For each one you read a one sentence clue, then drop one pin on the world map where you think it happened. You score by how close your pin lands.

Most are landmark US events, but a handful of world famous international ones are mixed in too, so watch the whole globe.

Stuck on a storm? Play a clue card from the theme you know best: Sports, History, Geography, or Culture. A clue card is a true fact that points you toward the place without naming it, and it only helps if you actually know that world. Each clue card costs ten percent of that storm.

Storm names stay hidden while the round is live, so a screenshot cannot spoil it. After you lock each pin, the reveal plays out the real event: the actual storm track or burn map, its rating, the place, and one fact worth knowing.

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.

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 challenge.

Different storms use different intensity scales, and the reveal shows the right one. Tornadoes use the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF0 to EF5), rated after the fact from the damage left behind. Hurricanes use the Saffir-Simpson scale (Category 1 to 5), rated by peak sustained wind. Both share the same weak to catastrophic color ramp, so a glance at the color tells you how bad it was.

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

Mile ranges are for a pin tap. The trace question is graded a little more forgivingly, and hints lower the score, so a hinted pin can land a tier below its raw distance.

Each day has a leaderboard of the top 50 scores, with your own row pinned so you can always find yourself. You play under an assigned weather handle: a storm chaser name plus a number, like Rain Curtain 6451. Your email and real name are never shown, and the number keeps any two players with the same name distinct.

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.

The daily game, streaks, leaderboard, and stats are free forever— including the post-close reveal: once a round you played closes, you can always look back and see every storm and its track for free. Pro is for players who want more: replaying any past round for a fresh score, the full archive of every day (even ones you missed), a Pro leaderboard ranked by bullseyes, and more modes as they land. It never touches your daily streak. See what's in Pro →

• Zoom and pan the 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.

Every reveal is built on authoritative geometry. Hurricane tracks come from NOAA HURDAT2 best track, tornado paths from NWS damage surveys, and wildfire footprints from official fire perimeters (CAL FIRE and county GIS). Storms and details come from the NWS Storm Events Database and the Storm Prediction Center. Nothing in a reveal is a hand drawn approximation.

Stormle is built around real extreme weather and nature 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 weather obsessive in Massachusetts. In May 2024 he chased the southern Plains for the first time and got close to the Hawley EF3. By day he works in business, not weather. He built StormGuessr to learn the storms better.