Disaster science
Disaster Science
Plain-English explainers on how major hazards form, spread, and are monitored.
These guides explain the basic science behind common hazards in plain English. Use them to understand what forecasters, public health teams, and emergency officials are watching before conditions become urgent. Pair the background with the practical hazard guides and the emergency management agency directory when you need official sources.
Keep learning
If you like the science side, Daily Earth View is a separate Earth-from-space project, and Guided Physics can help with the physics foundations behind weather, waves, energy, and motion.
Explain it clearly
Learn how hazards work
Science guideFloods: How They Happen, Why They Spread, and How Science Helps Forecast ThemLearn why floods form, how water moves through landscapes, and how science helps monitor rising risk.
Science guideHurricanes: How They Form, Grow, Move, and ChangeSee how warm ocean water, wind, pressure, and storm structure shape hurricanes and their hazards.
Science guideWildfires: How They Start, Spread, Behave, and How Science Helps Forecast ThemUnderstand how fuel, weather, terrain, embers, and smoke influence wildfire behavior.
Science guideWinter Storms: How Snow, Ice, Wind, and Cold Work TogetherExplore how cold air, moisture, storm tracks, ice, snow, wind, and temperature layers interact.
Science guideEarthquakes: How the Ground Shakes, Why Faults Slip, and How Science Helps Detect ThemLearn how faults slip, why the ground shakes, and how monitoring systems detect earthquakes.
Science guideTsunamis: How Ocean Waves Become a Coastal HazardUnderstand how tsunamis start, travel across oceans, grow near shore, and are detected.
Science guidePandemics: How Diseases Spread Across Populations and How Science Tracks ThemLearn the basics of transmission, surveillance, modeling, variants, vaccines, and public health response.
Morgan Hale
Need a practical next step?
Ask Morgan about disasters, preparedness, checklists, supplies, or practical next steps.