A new look for GeoIntel: Events, Weather and Time Zones

It's been a while since I wrote an update, and a lot has changed. GeoIntel has a new layout, three clearly separate modes, and several tools that didn't exist last time. Here is a walk through what you'll see when you open it.

The big idea: one map, three modes

At the top of the screen there is a Mode switch with three choices: Events, Weather and Time Zone. Everything revolves around the globe in the middle. The list on the left changes with the mode, and the panel on the right shows the details of whatever you click.

Switching modes never closes a panel or loses your selection. If you're reading about an event and flip to Weather to check conditions nearby, your place is kept.

A few things are always there:

• Draw opens a set of drawing and measuring tools.
• Layers switches map layers on and off. What it offers depends on the mode you're in.
• Dashboard holds your saved items, alerts, watchlist and settings. A small blue dot shows when you have unread alerts.

The map can be a globe or a flat map, in a dark or light theme (or following your device), with an optional starfield behind it. Those are in Settings.

On a phone, the side panels become sheets that slide up from the bottom. A List button and a Details button open them, and a grab bar makes a sheet taller or shorter.

Events mode

Events is the heart of GeoIntel: what's happening in the world, as reported by the news.

The list on the left

Each row shows a severity badge, the country and how long ago it was reported. Above the list you'll find:

• Search. Type a few words and the list narrows. It ignores capital letters and accents, so "sao paulo" finds "São Paulo". The map narrows with it, so what you see in the list is what's drawn.
• Scope: Global, Local or All. Each event explains why it was classed that way.
• Time range: 24 hours, 48 hours or 7 days.
• Sort: Severity, Newest or Country. Click the active one again to flip it.
• Filters: show everything, only major events (Severe or Critical), or pick a category. There is also a "first reported at night" switch, which keeps events whose report appeared between 22:00 and 05:00 where they happened. That is when the report appeared, not when the event happened, and the panel says so.

Severity runs on five levels: Minor, Moderate, Serious, Severe and Critical.

Reading the pins

A key under the top bar explains the map:

• A solid dot is something that happened.
• A hollow dot is a statement or talks, which has no physical place.
• A ring around a pin means the location is approximate. The wider the ring, the less precise it is.

When many events sit close together they gather into one numbered circle, coloured by the worst event inside. Click it and the map zooms in. If several events are at exactly the same spot, one pin carries a count, and clicking it lists them all, worst first.

The event panel on the right

Click an event and the right panel shows three tabs: Analysis, More Info and Comments.

Analysis includes:

• What we know and What is not known, with numbered links to the sources.
• Facts from the reporting. These are things like numbers killed or injured, and cues like infrastructure hit. The panel states that they are "stated in the article; nothing is estimated."
• The situation. Many outlets cover the same story, so GeoIntel groups them. You see "one of N stories on the same development" and how many outlets reported it, plus other angles and casualty figures as stated.
• Parties involved, and similar recent events.
• A nearby hazard, if a storm or flood happened at the same place and time, with a note that it doesn't mean one caused the other.
• A Cascade check, covered below.

More Info tells you how precise the location is, when it was first reported in local time at the pin, why it was rated the way it was, why it's Global or Local, and every source with its outlet name.

Comments can be read by anyone. Commenting needs an account and a display name, you can delete your own, and others can be reported.

Countries

Click a country on the globe, or a country badge, for a country panel with the flag, capital and region. It lists any conflicts involving that country, and has tabs for facts on government, people, migration, economy, security and geography. Economy and Geography are open to everyone, and the rest are for premium members. There's also an optional "analyst read," a short paragraph written by an AI from the figures on that tab only. It says so clearly, and it asks you to check it against the numbers.

Two modes inside Events: Cascade and War Watch

Under the top bar there's a three-way switch: Events | Cascade | War Watch. These are separate views. Switching clears what the previous one left on the map, so nothing overlaps. Both are premium features.

Cascade: "if this happened, who is exposed?"

Cascade shows which countries are exposed when something happens, such as an attack, sanctions, a key producer cut off, or a shipping route closing, and through which trade or energy link. It shows exposure from published figures, and it is not a forecast.

When you choose Cascade:

• The events list narrows to only the events that have a Cascade question worth asking. The map pins narrow with it.
• A workspace opens. You choose what happens (an attack, an embargo, an export ban, a disaster, a government collapse, or a shipping chokepoint closing), then where, and sometimes a commodity, then press Run cascade.
• The result ranks countries as High, Moderate or Low exposure. Each has the reasons and the evidence behind it, with the source. It also offers detours, "one step removed" knock-on effects, and which of your own watched places are affected.
• Show on the map colours the globe. You can download the result as a spreadsheet, name and save it, compare two saved scenarios, and share a read-only link that anyone can open without an account.

The suggestions are careful. From an event you press "Check for a cascade from this," and GeoIntel suggests a question with its reasons. Nothing runs until you choose, because a headline is a weak signal.

War Watch: conflicts, as reported

War Watch tracks wars and conflicts using news reports. Its rule is plain: it shows what was reported, not what has been verified.

Choosing War Watch turns the left list into the list of tracked conflicts. Each shows a status badge, who is involved, how many strikes were reported in the last 7 and 30 days, and why it has that status. The statuses are Active, Ceasefire, Ceasefire with reported violations, Reduced activity, Frozen, Unclear, Ended and Ended by agreement. Each status explains itself, with links to the reports.

Show on the map draws that conflict's reported strikes, coloured by weapon: drone, missile, rocket, air strike, shelling, several weapons or a general attack. There's a legend, a time bar you can drag or play to watch the reports unfold, and 7-day, 30-day and Latest buttons. Fainter dots are older. A strike is drawn only when its place is known to city level, and the legend says how many aren't drawn. The counts are lower bounds, because one entry stands for one place on one day.

Click Details and the right panel gives you:

• Status and why, and a ceasefire tracker where there's one
• A short note on the last 24 hours, and a weekly trend
• Context, the mix of weapons, and the most reported strikes
• Claims by the parties, such as land they say they took, kept separate from reported strikes
• Statements by named leaders
• Energy sites, ships and ports named in headlines, each with an optional "what if" question for Cascade
• The countries most tied by trade to the countries fighting
• A side-by-side comparison with another conflict, with no ranking of one against the other
• A button to follow the conflict, a read-only share link and a CSV download

If you follow a conflict, you hear about a ceasefire being reported, being reported broken, an ending, or fighting becoming active again. You get these in your alerts, and by email if you want. You can also choose a daily email with a short note on each conflict you follow.

Weather mode

Weather mode is about live hazards around the world.

• Chips under the top bar show Cyclones, Floods, Wildfires and Droughts, each with a live count. Click one to show only that type.
• The list has its own search, and three views: All, Major (Orange or Red alerts) and By type. Rows show an icon, the name, an alert badge and the country. The list is ordered by alert level, with cyclones first.
• Pins are round badges coloured by alert: red, orange or green. Click one for a popup and the full panel.
• The hazard panel gives a summary, intensity and dates, and a section on track and exposure. For cyclones that includes the past path, the forecast path, wind zones and the uncertainty cone. It also shows events in the same area, which link back to Events, with a note that sharing a place and time doesn't mean one caused the other. Alert levels are GDACS's own classification.
• Layers add live radar that loops the past two hours (with a slider and a Latest button), live cloud imagery, and satellite fire detections. You can also pick a forecast map, from the DWD ICON model: temperature, pressure, a rain forecast or wind speed. It's labelled "model, not observed," and a forecast bar lets you step through the hours.
• Click anywhere for a point forecast: current conditions, a timeline, hourly and daily detail, and recent rain. You can add up to three places to a comparison table. Forecasts come from MET Norway. Units and time zones are your choice in Settings.

If you have a premium account you can add places to a watchlist and set alerts for them, from hazards nearby to heat, cold, heavy rain, strong gusts and UV.

Time Zone mode

Time Zone mode is free for everyone and works entirely in your browser.

• Clocks. Pin up to eight places. Each shows the city, its offset from UTC, when its clocks next change, the time and date, and whether it is tomorrow or yesterday there. One search box does two jobs: type to narrow your pinned clocks, and cities to add appear underneath. Your clocks are saved on your device, and Copy link shares them with someone else.
• Meeting planner. With two or more places pinned, pick a day, your working hours and the meeting length. You see a 24-hour grid with a column for each place, coloured by working hours, early or late, and night. It marks the hours lost or doubled when the clocks change, and can copy the result as text.
• Convert. Type things like "9am New York," "14:00 UTC," "tomorrow 9am Tokyo" or "2026-11-02 17:30 Tokyo," and it shows the time for each of your places. Abbreviations like CST or IST are refused, because they're ambiguous. It also says when a time happens twice because the clocks go back.
• On the map. A time slider lets you move up to a day in either direction. The night side of the Earth is shaded, with the sunrise and sunset line, and you can switch on time labels for every zone. Click a zone for its time, when its clocks last changed and will change next, the sun's position at that point, and whether it uses daylight saving. You can pin it from there.

The Dashboard

The Dashboard has five tabs. Settings is free, and the other four are for premium members:

• Saved: the events you saved.
• Sources: hide outlets you don't want. Their stories disappear from the lists and the map.
• Watchlist: places you care about, with a radius from 10 to 2,000 km, and the alerts you want for each.
• Alerts: everything that triggered.
• Settings: panel layout, theme, map type, units, clock and date formats, and email choices.

Drawing and measuring

The Draw button opens tools to add points, text, lines, arrows, areas, rectangles, circles, freehand marks and a highlighter. They show lengths, angles, areas and bearings, in metric, imperial or nautical units. You can undo, group shapes into layers, save the view as an image, and, with an account, save, export and import drawings. Presentation mode hides everything but the map, and Escape brings it back.

Built to be usable by everyone

The keyboard works throughout. Escape closes pop-ups, and menus and toolbars respond to the arrow keys. Panels keep focus where it belongs, and the app respects your device's reduced-motion setting. On lighter devices it drops the animations and shows the latest radar frame instead.

The thread through all of it

Wherever GeoIntel shows you something, it says where it came from. Events link to their sources, War Watch says "reported, not verified," Cascade says "exposure, not a forecast," and anything an AI writes says so. If we can't be sure, we'd rather say that than invent an answer.