Weather Zombie

NATIONAL OUTBREAK MAP

Survivable (60+) Risky (40-59) Outbreak conditions (<40)

Today's Rankings

🏆 Safest Havens

    ☠ Most Doomed

      How the Survival Index works

      Every city on the map is scored out of 100, recalculated from its current conditions. The starting point is 50 and the weather moves it from there. Cold is the single largest factor: freezing temperatures add 25, on the reasoning that a frozen shambler is a slow shambler, while anything above 90°F subtracts 10 for producing fast, angry ones.

      After temperature comes what you can see and hear. Visibility below two miles costs 20 — they are already behind you — while clear sightlines add 10. Thunderstorms subtract 15 because thunder masks the moaning; rain subtracts 10 for muffling footsteps, theirs rather than yours. Night costs another 10. Snow is the one form of bad weather that helps, adding 10, because it slows them down and shows their tracks.

      It is a joke with a real skeleton: every input is a genuine meteorological measurement, and the ranking below moves with the actual weather. A city near the bottom today is generally somewhere with poor visibility, warm air and rain — which, joke aside, is also a reasonable description of conditions in which it is hard to see what is coming.

      Today’s ranking — all 66 cities

      #CityTempIndexVerdict
      1 Seattle, WA 64° 65 MODERATE
      2 Portland, OR 68° 65 MODERATE
      3 San Francisco, CA 59° 65 MODERATE
      4 Sacramento, CA 78° 65 MODERATE
      5 Portland, ME 48° 65 MODERATE
      6 Burlington, VT 49° 65 MODERATE
      7 Manchester, NH 48° 65 MODERATE
      8 Anchorage, AK 53° 65 MODERATE
      9 Honolulu, HI 83° 65 MODERATE
      10 Los Angeles, CA 72° 55 ELEVATED
      11 San Diego, CA 71° 55 ELEVATED
      12 Las Vegas, NV 86° 55 ELEVATED
      13 Tucson, AZ 84° 55 ELEVATED
      14 Salt Lake City, UT 64° 55 ELEVATED
      15 Denver, CO 67° 55 ELEVATED
      16 Boise, ID 75° 55 ELEVATED
      17 Billings, MT 69° 55 ELEVATED
      18 Fargo, ND 57° 55 ELEVATED
      19 Sioux Falls, SD 57° 55 ELEVATED
      20 Omaha, NE 60° 55 ELEVATED
      21 Wichita, KS 72° 55 ELEVATED
      22 Oklahoma City, OK 78° 55 ELEVATED
      23 Dallas, TX 89° 55 ELEVATED
      24 Houston, TX 89° 55 ELEVATED
      25 San Antonio, TX 88° 55 ELEVATED
      26 Austin, TX 89° 55 ELEVATED
      27 El Paso, TX 67° 55 ELEVATED
      28 Minneapolis, MN 57° 55 ELEVATED
      29 Des Moines, IA 59° 55 ELEVATED
      30 Kansas City, MO 65° 55 ELEVATED
      31 St. Louis, MO 66° 55 ELEVATED
      32 Chicago, IL 63° 55 ELEVATED
      33 Milwaukee, WI 56° 55 ELEVATED
      34 Indianapolis, IN 60° 55 ELEVATED
      35 Detroit, MI 61° 55 ELEVATED
      36 Columbus, OH 60° 55 ELEVATED
      37 Cleveland, OH 60° 55 ELEVATED
      38 Cincinnati, OH 62° 55 ELEVATED
      39 Louisville, KY 64° 55 ELEVATED
      40 Nashville, TN 70° 55 ELEVATED
      41 Memphis, TN 72° 55 ELEVATED
      42 New Orleans, LA 83° 55 ELEVATED
      43 Jackson, MS 84° 55 ELEVATED
      44 Birmingham, AL 74° 55 ELEVATED
      45 Atlanta, GA 78° 55 ELEVATED
      46 Jacksonville, FL 80° 55 ELEVATED
      47 Orlando, FL 80° 55 ELEVATED
      48 Tampa, FL 77° 55 ELEVATED
      49 Miami, FL 79° 55 ELEVATED
      50 Raleigh, NC 68° 55 ELEVATED
      51 Charleston, SC 76° 55 ELEVATED
      52 Richmond, VA 61° 55 ELEVATED
      53 Virginia Beach, VA 73° 55 ELEVATED
      54 Philadelphia, PA 62° 55 ELEVATED
      55 Pittsburgh, PA 58° 55 ELEVATED
      56 Buffalo, NY 52° 55 ELEVATED
      57 Newark, NJ 62° 55 ELEVATED
      58 Hartford, CT 52° 55 ELEVATED
      59 Providence, RI 52° 55 ELEVATED
      60 Boston, MA 52° 55 ELEVATED
      61 New York, NY 63° 50 ELEVATED
      62 Phoenix, AZ 93° 40 ELEVATED
      63 Albuquerque, NM 61° 35 HIGH RISK
      64 Charlotte, NC 70° 35 HIGH RISK
      65 Washington, DC 59° 35 HIGH RISK
      66 Baltimore, MD 60° 35 HIGH RISK

      Recalculated continuously from live conditions in each city, so this ordering is a snapshot rather than a standing. Full method above; the same index appears on every city forecast page.

      More: The Survival Guide · Survival Kit · Global Hazard Watch · All city forecasts

      How the Survival Index works

      Every city on this map is scored from its live weather, on the premise that a zombie outbreak would be governed by the same conditions that govern any emergency. The score runs 0–100, and lower is worse.

      Cold slows the horde. Freezing temperatures stiffen anything with joints, which is why the coldest cities score best. It is also the one part of the joke with a factual spine: cold genuinely does slow decomposition, and mortuary science has known it for a century.

      Poor visibility helps them. Fog, heavy rain and snow all cut sightlines. The score drops sharply below about two miles of visibility, because seeing something coming is the entire difference between an encounter and an ambush.

      Wind is a mixed blessing. It carries sound away from you as readily as towards you, so a gale is scored as a mild negative rather than an advantage.

      Heat is bad for everyone. Above about 90°F the score falls, on the grounds that heat exhaustion is a real hazard for the living whatever the dead are doing.

      The scoring is entertainment. The underlying point — that cold, visibility, wind and heat are what actually decide whether a bad day outdoors becomes a dangerous one — is not. For the serious version, the Survival Guide and Survival Kit cover the same ground without the undead.

      Want your own city rather than these sixty-six? Every US city we track has its own page, with local climate context alongside the forecast — browse them all in the city index.

      Not for life-safety decisions. Weather Zombie is an entertainment and information site. Forecasts, alerts, scores and maps here are provided “as is” with no warranty of accuracy, completeness or timeliness, are drawn from third-party sources, and may be delayed, wrong or unavailable. Nothing here replaces official warnings from your national weather or emergency service (in the US: NWS, NHC, USGS). Always follow instructions from local officials. Use at your own risk — see our Terms of Service.