Aaron Becker

The biggest share of North America's Redheads winters in one shallow lagoon, the Laguna Madre on the Texas and Tamaulipas coast. Dots are simulated birds placed from eBird sightings via @gbif.org and USGS band recoveries. #birds #birdmigration

Black Sea water pours through the Bosphorus, swings west along the Sea of Marmara's northern shore and drains through the Dardanelles into the Aegean. A week of surface currents, hour by hour. Data: E.U. Copernicus Marine Service (model)

Lower the Mediterranean just 110 metres and you can walk from Malta to Sicily. Keep draining and the floor sits on a kilometre of salt from the last time this sea dried out. Data: EMODnet, NOAA ETOPO 2022, ICE-6G_C #geography #maps #ocean

Over three million Lesser Scaup nest on the lakes of the western boreal forest and the prairies, then winter on the Gulf Coast, Florida and Chesapeake Bay. Dots are simulated birds placed from eBird sightings via @gbif.org and USGS band recoveries. #birds #birdmigration

Nearly three million Greater White-fronted Geese winter in the rice fields and marshes of the Gulf Coast, then nest on the Arctic tundra from Alaska to Nunavut. Dots are simulated birds placed from eBird sightings via @gbif.org and USGS band recoveries. #birds #birdmigration

Germany nearly tripled after 1871, from 29 million to 83 million people. The five eastern states went the other way: 12.4 million live there today, fewer than in 1910. Data: GPOP (Rösel 2022), Destatis #maps #dataviz #Germany

Lake Lucerne barely moved all week: surface water drifted about a kilometre a day, yet the basin off Gersau still turned anticlockwise while the Urnersee turned the other way. 11-17 Oct 2026, every three hours. Data: Alplakes lake model, Eawag (CC BY 4.0) #LakeLucerne #Switzerland #DataViz

The southern end of Lago di Garda turned slowly clockwise all week, one gyre filling the basin, and most afternoons the lake picked up speed. 11-17 Oct 2026, every three hours. Data: Alplakes lake model, Eawag (CC BY 4.0) #LakeGarda #Italy #DataViz

Super Typhoon Champi's hurricane-force winds cover three times the area of Taiwan at their peak on Thursday. Most of it dies at sea before the eye comes ashore near Taitung on Friday night. NOAA HAFS forecast, Oct 19. #Taiwan #typhoon #weather #dataviz

Manhattan peaked in 1910 at 2.3 million people. One Lower East Side census tract held 44,000 people on 50 acres; those blocks now hold about one person for every four. Data: IPUMS NHGIS · Bromley atlases, NYPL #dataviz #maps #NYC #history

Lac Léman sat almost still all week. Then on Saturday afternoon the whole lake woke up: by 8 PM its typical surface current was five times faster than that morning. Surface currents, 11 to 17 October 2026. Data: Alplakes lake model, Eawag (CC BY 4.0, adapted) #LacLéman #dataviz

Vancouver Island and its neighbors have 28 lighthouses between them. The big stations sweep, smaller lights blink on the rhythm printed on the chart. Fisgard and Race Rocks, lit in 1860, were the first two on Canada's west coast. Data: OpenStreetMap, NGA, Coast Guard #VancouverIsland #Lighthouses

California's fall color starts above 9,000 feet in late September and reaches the valley floor around Sacramento in mid-November. Averaged over 25 years of NASA MODIS phenology. #fallfoliage #California #maps

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. On 11 October, Burntcoat Head rose and fell about 14 meters (46 feet), and all of it squeezes through Minas Passage, where the current tops 9 knots. Data: NOAA GoMOFS model; tides: DFO Canada #BayOfFundy #NovaScotia #NewBrunswick

In a typical autumn, the Ardennes beech is half turned by mid-October; the Netherlands holds on toward the end of the month. Mostly farmland, so the colour lives in the woods. Averaged over 25 years. Data: NASA MODIS, DWD, Copernicus #fallfoliage #Belgium #Netherlands #Luxembourg

In a typical autumn, the Carpathian beech of the Apuseni and Bucegi is half turned by mid-October; the woods around Bucharest hold on into November. Averaged over 25 years. Data: NASA MODIS, ForestPaths #fallfoliage #Romania #toamna #maps

In a typical autumn, the mountain beech of Šumava is half turned by about October 5; the floodplain woods around Lednice wait until the end of the month. More than half the forest is spruce and pine. Averaged over 25 years. Data: NASA MODIS, ČHMÚ #fallfoliage #Czechia #podzim

In a typical autumn, Ukraine's Carpathian beech is half turned by about October 8, Kyiv's woods peak in late October, and the beech of the Crimean mountains comes last. Averaged over 25 years. Data: NASA MODIS, Copernicus #fallfoliage #Ukraine #осінь #maps

In a typical fall, the larches at Washington Pass turn gold in the first week of October, about a month before Seattle's trees peak. Averaged over 25 years of NASA MODIS phenology. #fallfoliage #PNW #maps

Fall color takes about six weeks to cross the lower 48. It peaks first in California's high Sierra at the end of September and last on the same state's valley floor in November. The typical autumn, from 25 years of satellite records. #fallfoliage #autumn #maps

Iran's rivers carried about 720 cubic metres a second at the end of summer 2025 and about 121,500 on 28 March 2026, when the Zagros snow went. Roughly 170 times the flow, and much of it never reaches an ocean. Data: @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social #rivers #Iran #dataviz

Lighthouses of Alaska's Inside Passage. The big stations sweep, harbor lights and buoys blink on the rhythm printed on the chart. Sentinel Island and Five Finger, lit in 1902, were the first US lighthouses in Alaska. Data: OpenStreetMap, NOAA, USCG #Alaska #Lighthouses #Maps

Typical peak colour in Spain's forests: Irati in the Pyrenees around the start of November, the Genal valley chestnuts in Andalusia mid-to-late November. Holm oak, cork oak and pine keep the south dark. 25 years of NASA MODIS phenology. #otoño #España #fallfoliage

On the night of 9 October, the water at Anchorage dropped 32 feet in seven hours. Here is all of Cook Inlet's tide pouring in and out past the Forelands, hour by hour, 3 to 10 October 2026. Data: NOAA CIOFS model #CookInlet #Anchorage #Alaska

More than 4.2 million km² of Arctic ocean that used to freeze has now gone over a year without sea ice. Above 80°N the sea still refreezes every winter; nearly two thirds of the loss sits below 60°N. Data: @nsidc.bsky.social #Arctic #SeaIce #dataviz

Reservation and trust land is 3.8% of the lower 48 today. This is how the rest was taken: colonial counties first, then 1.82 billion acres of recorded cessions by 1894. In California, 18 treaties were never ratified. The land was taken anyway. #IndigenousPeoplesDay #maps #dataviz

Typical peak colour in Türkiye's forests: Yedigöller late October, Istanbul's Belgrad Forest around Nov 10. The plateau is steppe and the southern pine stays green, so the turn is a Black Sea ribbon. 25 years of NASA MODIS phenology. #sonbahar #Türkiye #fallfoliage

Almost half the buildings standing in Minneapolis and Saint Paul today were already up by 1930. The war nearly stopped building: 3,957 survivors from 1941, 269 from 1943. #dataviz #TwinCities #maps

In a typical autumn, Italy's Alpine larches peak around mid-October, the Apennine beech woods late in the month, and Calabria and Etna not until early to mid November. Averaged over 25 years, day by day. Data: NASA MODIS, ISPRA, Copernicus #fallfoliage #Italy #autunno #maps

Lake Tahoe's surface never sits still, even in a calm week. Light autumn winds kept it drifting about two and a half miles a day, curling into eddies a few miles across. Our own model, 30 Sep-7 Oct 2026. Data: NOAA HRRR, TRPA, USGS #LakeTahoe #dataviz #maps

Two weeks of air moving over the entire planet, both poles in one frame. Color is air temperature, brightness is speed. Around Antarctica, the storms of the Southern Ocean race west to east with almost no land in their way. Data: ERA5 / Copernicus #weather #wind #dataviz

Fall color takes about four weeks to cross the US. Minnesota's north woods peak in the first week of October; the South Atlantic waits until the end of the month. The typical autumn, from 25 years of satellite records. #fallfoliage #autumn #maps #dataviz