Every major stop on the build — signed like the Interstate it's named for. Each build day rolls in as its own numbered highway: the grand opening on I-10, all the way up to today on I-42.
↗
21
Days paving
34
Exits built
1
Forecast engine
3,144
Counties online
∞
Miles to go
MINOR WORK AHEAD
What's signed here: new tools, data engines, and honest-to-goodness features. Cosmetic tweaks, label nudges, and pothole patches get paved over quietly — this log only marks the major stops.
INTERSTATE 42 · TODAY
Thursday, August 27, 2026
RALEIGH → MOREHEAD CITY · the freshest pavement
DAY
49
🛣️A new front door. The home page was a search box over a wall of thirty-four identical cards, on a site that had spent two months building maps and never showed one. It now opens with the country as it is this minute: live national radar and satellite from squall.cloud, a seven-number strip across the top — active alerts, the population standing under one, the hottest and coldest readings in the country, how many Americans clear 100°F today, cyclones on the map, stations reporting — and every active watch and warning as a chip in the NWS’s own colour. The atlas below is signed by section instead of numbered at random. FEATURE
🦅Exit 1 opens for real: Forecast Models. The Models Lab had been a road-work diamond and a promise. It is now the model room — seven NOAA, NWS and NASA products (HRRR, RRFS, NDFD, NBM, RTMA, GFS and GEOS-5 FP), each carrying the still from its latest cycle, the hour it is valid, and a fact read straight off the frame: strongest echoes near Ocracoke, NC. There is a short road sign for which model answers which question, and the explorers themselves live on our sister site, Forecast Eagle. 1NEW EXIT
🧭The model room is one click from anywhere. Clean URLs (/models, /forecast-models, /eagle) and Forecast Models added to the footer that every page in the atlas carries. ATLAS
INTERSTATE 41
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
MILWAUKEE → GREEN BAY
DAY
47
💧Precipitable Water (new Exit). Every drop of vapour in the column overhead, squeezed into a puddle — the number that decides whether a thunderstorm drops a tenth of an inch or four. ERA5 from 1 January 1940 to the ECMWF forecast, day by day, area-averaged onto the nation, the nine climate regions, 48 states, 344 climate divisions and 3,109 counties, as a value, an anomaly, a percent of normal or an all-time rank. Florida’s all-time peak lands on 18 September 1947 — the Fort Lauderdale hurricane — and the Lower 48 is having its moistest year in 87. The trend line is fitted from 1979 only, because the 1940–78 back extension assimilates no satellite moisture soundings and column vapour is exactly the field that notices. 33NEW EXIT
🗺️The PRISM Data Explorer (new Exit). Oregon State’s 4 km grids, the longest high-resolution climate record in the country: high, low and average temperature for every county, climate division, state and climate region from January 1895 to yesterday, against the 1991–2020 normal, with a 130-year trend and a day-by-day calendar. The map can be pointed at any month, season or year in the record — July 1936 and the winter of 1979 are one select away — and mean dew point joined the next day as a fourth variable, on its own sand-to-teal ramp so a humidity map can never be mistaken for a temperature one. 34NEW EXIT
🧭A field whose name was lying. The 628 GB ERA5 archive these maps are built from is labelled pwat, and its GRIB messages say PWATsfc — but it is total column water, vapour plus cloud plus rain plus snow, not precipitable water. It fits tcw to 0.003 mm and tcwv only to 0.109, and the giveaway was the shape of the difference: 86% positive, with a long tail. The two are close on a quiet day and are not the same number in a hurricane — Laura’s Louisiana peak reads 2.79″ one way and 3.37″ the other — so the Exit ships both fields and never treats them as interchangeable. DATA
🖼️Exported maps carry the whole picture. The ⇩ PNG on a map used to hand back the choropleth alone. It now brings the headline banner and the side panel with it, and on PRISM it exports the view you are actually looking at rather than always the whole country — so a state you zoomed into comes out as a state. ATLAS
⚖️Cosine weighting, or the Lower 48 runs cold. PRISM sits on a plain lon/lat grid, where a cell in Minnesota covers less ground than one in Texas. Averaging them evenly ran the national temperature half a degree cold (76.32°F against nClimGrid’s 76.88 for July). Weighting every cell by cos(latitude) lands it at 76.66, and what is left is a real difference between two datasets rather than an error in ours. DATA
INTERSTATE 40
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
BARSTOW → WILMINGTON
DAY
40
🔨The Home Improvement Atlas (new Exit). Home Depot vs Lowe’s vs Menards — every orange, blue and green big box in the country on one map, with the share of each state living within ten miles of one (84%), today’s weather in every lumber yard, and the standoff that defines the industry: 524 Home Depots sit within a mile of a Lowe’s. Menards never left the Midwest — 15 states, all of them within a day of Eau Claire. Zoom any state for a shaded-relief atlas you can download. 32NEW EXIT
🧱Store maps now find the buildings, not just the pins. Big-box stores are mapped in OpenStreetMap as building footprints, so a points-only read found 83 of some 2,000 Home Depots. The extractor resolves those footprints properly now — and does it in two streaming passes instead of a 50 GB index, which fixes it for every chain in the atlas. DATA
⏱️The hourly rainfall analysis stopped stalling. The URMA store had been silently declining new hours at a units rollover; the time units are pinned now, so Trillions of Gallons keeps counting. DATA
INTERSTATE 39
Friday, August 14, 2026
NORMAL → WAUSAU
DAY
36
🧇The Waffle House Index (new Exit). FEMA’s storm yardstick, live. Every Waffle House in the country coloured green, yellow or red by the watch or warning standing over it this minute, with the Interstate each one sits on and the nearest one to you — plus twenty years of storms, restaurant by restaurant. 31NEW EXIT
🛻The Truck Stop Atlas (new Exit). Pilot Flying J against Love’s, corridor by corridor: who leads which Interstate, how much of each road is within 25 miles of a stop, and the number that matters at 2 a.m. with a quarter tank — the longest hop between fuel stops. Zoom into any state for a shaded-relief road atlas you can download and print. 30NEW EXIT
🦫The Buc-ee’s Road Atlas (new Exit). Every Buc-ee’s matched to the Interstate it sits on — how much of each corridor is within an hour of a beaver, where the longest dry stretches run, and today’s weather in the parking lot. 29NEW EXIT
🛣️Every city page now ends at an interchange. The bottom of a city page signs you into the rest of the atlas with real local numbers on each board — this county’s temperature departure, its rainfall against normal, its storm history, the nearest truck stop and Waffle House. FEATURE
INTERSTATE 37
Thursday, August 13, 2026
CORPUS CHRISTI → SAN ANTONIO
DAY
35
🥵Hot & Cold Days (new Exit). How many days a county, state or region cleared 80, 90, 100 or 110°F — or fell below 40, 32, 20, 0 or −20°F — measured against the 1996–2025 climatology, with a projection for where the year ends up. 25NEW EXIT
🎨Climate maps read right. Warmest ranks are red again (they had been inverted), and county ranks now resolve for every period, not just the annual one. FEATURE
🧭Climate Trends drills to the county. A State→County picker, working sub-annual county series, and Connecticut’s planning-region counties wired in. FEATURE
INTERSTATE 35
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
LAREDO → DULUTH
DAY
33
📈Climate Trends (new Exit). The companion to the climate maps: warming stripes, an OLS trend line you can toggle on, a sorted year-ranking table under the chart, and a PNG you can hand to anyone. Any scale, any period, back to 1895. 28NEW EXIT
🕰️County climate back to 1895. Climate at a Glance now lazy-loads the full monthly county history, so a county map reaches as far back as the state and national ones always did. DATA
🖼️Honest map exports. A fixed per-month color table, whole-number temperature ranges, and a PNG download that actually renders what you are looking at. ATLAS
INTERSTATE 30
Monday, August 10, 2026
FORT WORTH → LITTLE ROCK
DAY
32
🌪️Storm Reports (new Exit). Every tornado, hail and wind report in the SPC record since 1950, by county, state and forecast office, with fatalities and injuries — plus this year’s preliminary local storm reports from the IEM feed, so the current season is never a blank page. 26NEW EXIT
🗺️Climate at a Glance Maps (new Exit). NOAA’s nClimDiv record from 1895 to now at six scales, over any period you choose, as a value, an anomaly or a rank — with a labeled legend and a downloadable map. The browser does the climatology, so any baseline is a click away. 27NEW EXIT
INTERSTATE 29
Sunday, August 9, 2026
KANSAS CITY → PEMBINA
DAY
31
📊Alerts Archive, by office and by year. Year-to-date counts, full history and trends for any state or NWS forecast office, and tornado watches broken out into their own blue so they stop hiding inside the warning totals. FEATURE
INTERSTATE 27
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
LUBBOCK → AMARILLO
DAY
20
🔎Alerts Archive: pick your window. Month, day and trailing-window views with per-period peril stats, and a segmented color bar under the choropleth so the breaks are readable instead of guessed. FEATURE
🏙️Rainfall over the cities themselves. Trillions of Gallons adds Census urban-area footprints — rain on the built-up area, not the whole county — plus 12-hour, 60-day and 90-day windows. FEATURE
📌The navy bar stays put. The breadcrumb bar is pinned on every page, so you can always get back out to the atlas. ATLAS
🗄️The NDFD spatial store moved to Virginia. The forecast Zarr mirror now sits next to the machines that read it. DATA
INTERSTATE 26
Saturday, July 25, 2026
KINGSPORT → CHARLESTON
DAY
16
🛰️Every state page opens with a picture. Headline satellite and radar stills from squall.cloud, straight over the state you are looking at. FEATURE
INTERSTATE 25
Friday, July 24, 2026
LAS CRUCES → BUFFALO
DAY
15
🧊Areal Impacts runs hourly, and reaches Alaska and Hawaii. One build now covers the Lower 48 plus the Alaska and Hawaii NDFD sectors, refreshed every hour instead of by hand. DATA
INTERSTATE 24
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
PULLEYS MILL → CHATTANOOGA
DAY
13
⚡City pages got fast. The forecast renders first over an instant skeleton, and the NDFD point behind every popular city is warmed and cached ahead of you asking — so the page is there before you finish reading the name. FEATURE
🧹One forecast, one source. Open-Meteo is out of the city forecast core; the NWS NDFD engine carries it end to end. DATA
INTERSTATE 22
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
BIRMINGHAM → MEMPHIS
DAY
12
🔥Degree Days (new Exit). Heating and cooling degree days on base 65°F against the 1996–2025 normal — county, division, state, NCEI region and national — with live URMA on top of the record, trends, records, a daily calendar, and growing degree days as a third mode. 22NEW EXIT
🌡️Temperature vs Normal (new Exit). Average, high and low departures against the same recent normal, live URMA for the days the record hasn’t reached, a 75-year warming trend, and a day-by-day calendar. 23NEW EXIT
🏆Temperature Records (new Exit). All-time record daily highs and lows for every county and state since 1951, which records fell this year, and a hottest/coldest leaderboard. 24NEW EXIT
🧬Local Climate, on every city page. Warming stripes for the county you are standing in, plus a seasonal envelope showing the normals and the records around today’s date. FEATURE
📉Trends you can weigh. A population-weighted trends chart, and trend sparklines beside every row of the ranked tables. FEATURE
INTERSTATE 20
Monday, July 20, 2026
KENT → FLORENCE
DAY
11
📚Alerts Archive (new Exit). Every warning and watch the Weather Service has issued, county by county, from the IEM VTEC record back to 1986 — with state zoom, per-year calendars, 20-year county normals, standings and records, the population each day’s alerts reached, and a marker for where the VTEC era begins. Flood warnings are pulled out into their own green so they stop swamping the severity ranking. 21NEW EXIT
🗺️Advisory Map: zoom a state, count the people. State zoom with hard black state lines, and the population standing under each active alert. FEATURE
🩹Retired counties colour again. County codes that have been renamed or retired — Shannon to Oglala Lakota, and the rest — are aliased now, so those polygons stop rendering blank. DATA
INTERSTATE 19
Saturday, July 18, 2026
TUCSON → NOGALES
DAY
9
🛰️Satellite and radar, one tap from the forecast. Every city page deep-links into the squall.cloud viewer at your own latitude and longitude — live GOES imagery and MRMS radar, already centered where you are standing. FEATURE
INTERSTATE 17
Friday, July 17, 2026
PHOENIX → FLAGSTAFF
DAY
8
🌀Tropical (new Exit). Every active tropical cyclone on Earth on one world map — Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes, Western Pacific typhoons, Indian Ocean and Southern-Hemisphere cyclones — from the National Hurricane Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Forecast tracks, error cones, current intensity, per-storm cards, and NHC's 7-day areas of possible development. NEW EXIT
🕐Rainfall, hour by hour. Trillions of Gallons now keeps the 1-hourly URMA analysis for the last 30 days: a calendar heat map of every hour for any county, state, or the nation, and sharper last-24/48-hour totals. Areas the analysis hasn't reached yet are honestly grayed out instead of reading zero. FEATURE
🗓️Rainfall, day by day. Rainfall vs. Normal gets its own calendar: every day of the last 13 months as a heat map, each month's row labeled with its % of the 1996–2025 normal — for any county, state, or the nation. FEATURE
🛣️Interstate Weather Lines (new Exit). One synoptic snapshot down a whole Interstate — temperature, feels-like, sky, wind, and rain at every major stop, from live surface observations, with a color-coded route map. Watch the weather change mile by mile from Michigan to Miami. NEW EXIT
INTERSTATE 16
Thursday, July 16, 2026
MACON → SAVANNAH
DAY
7
🌫️Air Quality. A live US EPA AQI reading in Current Conditions, plus an Air Quality card — the current value from the nearest official EPA AirNow monitor on a color-banded AQI dial, and a daily outlook with action-day flags, colored on the official Good→Hazardous scale. FEATURE
☀️Sun & UV exposure. A 36-hour UV strip colored on the WHO/EPA scale, with a live UV Index reading in Current Conditions and a pentagon peak sign. Powered by Open-Meteo (CAMS) — dashed caps show the clear-sky ceiling so you can watch clouds knock it down. FEATURE
INTERSTATE 15
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
SAN DIEGO → SWEETGRASS
DAY
6
Next-36-Hours forecast bars. Hourly detail rolling into a 3-hourly tail, day-tagged, with a precip-chance heat-map row and NDFD daily high/low extremes. FEATURE
Next-12-Hours hourly chart added to the city page for the near-term view. FEATURE
🏪Dollar General weather atlas. 19,000+ stores mapped from a local OpenStreetMap pipeline, with live conditions. 16
INTERSTATE 14
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
CENTRAL TEXAS CORRIDOR
DAY
5
🛒Costco weather atlas. Every warehouse mapped, with population-in-radius and live conditions. 15
🅿️Interstate Rest-Area directory with blue-sign route pages. 14
Bulletins. The NWS Area Forecast Discussion, plus a Hazardous Weather Outlook toggle up top. FEATURE
Areal Impacts. A 7-day national scrubber for temperature & precipitation, county by county — now including Alaska & Hawaii from live NDFD sectors. FEATURE
Advisories: real-time population impact. Per-county Census population × active alerts, so you see how many people a hazard actually reaches. DATA
📍"Use my location." A privacy-first, one-tap button on the home page and search bar. FEATURE
State atlas field guide. A road-atlas overlay on the relief "puzzle pieces," plus a click-to-enlarge photo guide. ATLAS
INTERSTATE 13
Monday, July 13, 2026
THE ROAD NOT YET SIGNED
DAY
4
✈️Aviation weather. A national flight-category map, per-airport METAR/TAF, crosswind & density-altitude, a hazards layer (SIGMETs + turbulence/icing PIREPs), and winds aloft — live METARs self-decoded from NWS. 13
Interstate route maps. Per-route live-conditions maps with shaded relief, mile-marker exit ticks, and route mileage. FEATURE
🌡️Climate Divisions map. NOAA's 344 divisions on a modern 1996–2025 baseline, with a month selector. 11
Advisory Map — a live county advisory choropleth on a light-relief base with Alaska/Hawaii insets. 4
🛡️Brand. The weather.city Interstate-shield logo, favicons, and social share cards. SIGN
INTERSTATE 12
Sunday, July 12, 2026
BATON ROUGE BYPASS
DAY
3
🛣️National Interstate map. Tour all 66 CONUS Interstates from live OpenStreetMap geometry, with beltway zoom insets, an Eisenhower-System reference, and a running mileage odometer. FEATURE
Accurate MUTCD shields. Exact FHWA/Wikimedia shield geometry — the real scalloped top and rounded point. Every shield on this page is drawn from it.SIGN
🏙️Urban Areas directory — a ranked list of Census urban areas with per-area pages. ·
Advisories: the periodic table of NWS alerts in their official colors, with live counts. FEATURE
🔥Hot Spots — a live search-popularity leaderboard (top states & metros), plus the Population Impact page and precompute pipeline. DATA
Bespoke NDFD map renderer (/map.png, GrADS) over an hourly Zarr mirror, plus a Status page and the shared site footer. DATA
INTERSTATE 11
Saturday, July 11, 2026
LAS VEGAS → PHOENIX · the newest corridor
DAY
2
🏛️Full county coverage. Pages for all 3,144 U.S. counties, plus a county extreme-weather ranking hub. FEATURE
Nearest Observations — the closest reporting surface stations around any point. FEATURE
🌦️Highway-signage weather icons — the bespoke 48-grid glyph system, wired across the site. SIGN
Proper breadcrumbs (Home › US › State › County › City)… and a Konami-code easter egg. 🎮
◄ GRAND OPENING ►
Interstate 10 — where the road begins
INTERSTATE 10 · MILE 0
Thursday, July 10, 2026
SANTA MONICA → JACKSONVILLE · the founding transcontinental
DAY
1
🚧Reinvented as a clean Interstate-signage weather site. The whole concept: point-to-point NWS forecasts dressed in the language of the American highway. LAUNCH
⚙️Self-hosted forecast engine.api.weather.city over an NBM/NDFD Zarr mirror with a 4-worker fleet — our single forecast source, no third-party fallback. DATA
30-day observations store. Hourly U.S. ASOS, served through /v1/obs and wired into live Current Conditions. DATA
Recent Climate panel. F-6 departures from normal, with an NBM cross-check on the forecast. FEATURE
🪧"Big Green Sign" share cards and a URL-friendly highway directory — /US/ST/City and /US/ZIP/#####. SIGN