Home · About

Public API

TornadoLookup serves its core lookup data as plain JSON. If you want to programmatically pull every tornado within N miles of a point, hit a single endpoint and get back the same data the lookup page uses — including the curated famous-event names where applicable.

No authentication, no API keys, no signup. Please cache responses and don't hammer the endpoint — see the polite-use notes at the bottom.

Endpoint

GET https://tornadolookup.com/api/nearby

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Notes
`lat`	float	yes	Decimal degrees, WGS84.
`lng`	float	yes	Decimal degrees, WGS84. Negative in the western hemisphere.
`radius`	float	no	Miles. Default `50`. Max `250`. If the requested radius returns zero tornadoes, the server expands automatically to 200mi and sets `expanded: true`.

Example — tornadoes within 20 miles of Joplin, Missouri

curl 'https://tornadolookup.com/api/nearby?lat=37.07&lng=-94.51&radius=20'

Response, abbreviated for readability:

{
  "lat": 37.07,
  "lng": -94.51,
  "radius_mi": 20,
  "expanded": false,
  "count": 100,
  "most_significant": {
    "event_id": 296617,
    "state": "Missouri",
    "state_slug": "missouri",
    "county": "Jasper",
    "begin_date": "2011-05-22",
    "f_scale": "EF5",
    "deaths": 161,
    "injuries": 1150,
    "damage_property": 2800000000,
    "path_length_mi": 8.8,
    "lat": 37.056,
    "lon": -94.5701,
    "distance_mi": 3.45,
    "famous_name": "Joplin Tornado (2011)"
  },
  "tornadoes": [
    { "event_id": 1167423, "begin_date": "2024-05-06",
      "f_scale": "EF1", "deaths": 0, "distance_mi": 0.69, ... },
    ...
  ]
}

Top-level response

Field	Type	Notes
`lat` / `lng`	float	The query point, echoed back.
`radius_mi`	float	The radius actually searched (after auto-expand if applicable).
`expanded`	bool	`true` if the server widened to 200mi because the requested radius was empty.
`count`	int	Number of tornadoes returned (max 100 at default radius, 25 if expanded).
`tornadoes`	array	Tornadoes within the radius, sorted by `distance_mi` ascending.
`most_significant`	object or null	The deaths-DESC top event in the radius, surfaced separately when it (a) clears the SPC significance bar (≥1 death or EF3+) and (b) is not already the closest result. Useful for highlighting headline events that would otherwise hide behind a closer F0.

Each tornado object

Field	Type	Notes
`event_id`	int	NOAA Storm Events ID. Detail page lives at `/event/{event_id}`.
`state` / `state_slug`	string	e.g. `"Missouri"` / `"missouri"`.
`county`	string	NOAA's county or forecast-zone name. May be empty for older or zone-fcst entries.
`begin_date`	string	`YYYY-MM-DD`, local date of the event.
`f_scale`	string	`"EF0"`–`"EF5"` for post-2007 events, `"F0"`–`"F5"` for pre-2007. May be empty for unrated entries.
`deaths` / `injuries`	int	Direct only — NOAA's indirect-death column is not surfaced here.
`damage_property`	int	USD, point-in-time, not inflation-adjusted.
`path_length_mi`	float	NWS-recorded path length. NOAA splits long paths across counties, so a single tornado can have multiple rows; this endpoint preserves the raw rows rather than aggregating.
`lat` / `lon`	float	Begin point of the tornado, decimal degrees.
`distance_mi`	float	Great-circle distance from the query point to the tornado's begin point.
`famous_name`	string, optional	Curated label for ~35 well-known tornadoes — `"Joplin Tornado (2011)"`, `"Mayfield Tornado (2021)"`, etc. Absent for events without a curated name.

Polite use

Responses include Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600. Please honor it — caching for an hour is plenty for almost any client.
This is a single-binary Go server on one VPS. If you need to pull tens of thousands of points, say hi first — we'll send you a SQLite snapshot or a static dump rather than have you hit the API in a loop.
Data is the NOAA Storm Events Database, public domain. The famous_name annotations are TornadoLookup's; everything else is NOAA's.
No SLA, no warranty, no guarantee the schema won't change. We try to be backwards-compatible but reserve the right to add fields.

A working consumer

tornado-near.wick — a 50-line program in Wick (a tiny Lisp) that hits this endpoint for five cities and prints the most significant historical tornado within 20 miles of each. A working example of how the response shape composes.