Every year the planet spins up dozens of tropical cyclones: hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the Pacific, cyclones in the Indian Ocean. The physics is the same, but the data is often controversial. Official advisories, a dozen competing forecast models, and regional agencies all describe the same storm in different formats, on different schedules, and often under different names. A single model run is just one opinion, sometimes brilliant, but sometimes wrong. For a business that has to decide whether to shut a platform, reroute a fleet, or brief a reinsurer, that fragmentation is the real hazard.
OpenWeather's Storm Tracker API returns every active tropical cyclone on Earth with a single request to a standard REST API. For each system it polls more than ten models from the world's leading forecast centres and builds a weighted consensus, using established, stable coefficients that reflect how reliable each source has proven over time. The result is one track, one uncertainty zone, one answer you can act on.
What one request returns
Each response is a complete, ready-to-use picture of every storm worldwide, delivered as map-ready layers:
- Storm identity — name, ID, ocean basin, and Saffir–Simpson category for every active system.
- Current conditions — centre position, maximum sustained wind, and central pressure, from official best-track sources.
- Storm-force wind zones — the dangerous wind area by quadrant, reflecting the fact that a storm's wind field is never symmetrical.
- Forecast track — a consensus path up to 10 days (240 hours) ahead, with expected wind strength at every step.
- Uncertainty zone — how far the models diverge at each lead time, so forecast confidence is something you can see.
- Individual model tracks — available on request for expert analysis and model comparison.
As it carries both OpenWeather's own consensus based on various sources and the official NHC view, teams can measure exposure against both their own picture and the authoritative one. That’s a distinction that matters enormously when the decision is expensive.
Where it matters most: the world's cyclone hotspots
Tropical cyclones are a global phenomenon, but they are far from evenly distributed. They form in six recognised basins, and a handful of coastlines carry the overwhelming share of the risk. Storm Tracker's global coverage is designed precisely for the businesses exposed along them.
The Northwest Pacific is the most active basin on the planet, generating roughly 26 tropical cyclones a year and the strongest “super typhoons” anywhere. Its storms repeatedly strike the densely populated coasts of the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, eastern China and Vietnam, along with some of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
The North Indian Ocean (and the Bay of Bengal in particular) — is the deadliest. Despite covering under 1% of the global ocean, it is associated with the majority of the world's cyclone-related deaths: its funnel shape and shallow shelf turn storms into catastrophic surges. The 1970 Bhola cyclone alone killed an estimated 500,000 people in what is now Bangladesh. India, Bangladesh and Myanmar remain acutely exposed.
The North Atlantic drives hurricane season across the Caribbean, Central America, and the Gulf and East Coast of the United States, the basin behind the largest insured losses. The Northeast Pacific, off Mexico and Central America, is the second most active. Rounding out the map, the South Indian Ocean threatens Madagascar, Mozambique and Réunion, while the South Pacific affects Australia and the island states. In practice, Asia and the Americas concentrate most of the commercial exposure, and any operation with assets, vessels or policies along those coasts is a candidate for Storm Tracker API.
The industries that stand to benefit
Storm Tracker API is built specifically for business decisions: from risk desks to routing teams. Three sectors feel the impact most directly.
Logistics & Maritime. A cyclone symbol on a chart says little about where conditions are actually dangerous — storm-force winds routinely reach a hundred nautical miles or more from the centre, almost always asymmetrically. Fleets carrying cargo across the Pacific and Indian Oceans need to know not just where a storm is, but which side is dangerous and how much sea room to leave. Storm Tracker's wind zones and consensus track show the corridor to avoid, while the uncertainty zone tells routing teams when to keep tight margins and when to leave generous ones. Ports and terminals get the same picture for berthing, closure and workforce decisions.
Insurance & Risk. When a hurricane forms, every insurer asks the same questions: which policies sit in the path, what losses to reserve for, and how to brief reinsurers and regulators before landfall. Overlaying insured locations against the forecast track, the multi-model uncertainty zone and the official NHC cone turns portfolio exposure into a live geospatial answer. The wind-zone layer sharpens it further, separating properties inside genuine storm-force conditions from those merely near the track, a difference worth millions in reserving accuracy and, after the event, in fair and fast claims handling.
Energy & Utilities. For an energy operator, a single cyclone is many risks at once: offshore platforms and wind farms in the path, coastal substations exposed to storm-force winds, transmission lines crossing the landfall zone, and repair crews whose safety depends on timing. The costliest calls -halting production, de-energising lines, evacuating personnel - must be made days ahead, while forecasts still disagree. Storm Tracker API gives that lead time with confidence attached: the consensus track shows the likely path up to 10 days out, the wind zone shows which assets fall inside dangerous conditions, and the uncertainty zone signals when the forecast is solid enough to trigger costly protective action, and when to wait for the next model cycle.
How to start
Storm Tracker API is delivered as part of OpenWeather Enterprise, the service model built for operational and mission-critical use cases. Organisations begin with a standard Enterprise Base Licence, a ready-to-start package that provides contract-based access to OpenWeather's core data, forecasts and alerts. From there, the service expands to add Storm Tracker API and other products, higher usage volumes, custom delivery methods, meteorologist support, or fully integrated solutions as requirements grow.
Teams that need a tailored setup from the outset can work with the OpenWeather team to define the right data scope, commercial structure and onboarding path. To get started or to arrange evaluation access to Storm Tracker API please speak with our team.