About the Data Layers
The Data Layers panel puts Oklahoma's hazard, vulnerability, market and demographic record on the same map as the property data. Every layer comes from a federal public-domain source or an attribution-only open source, snapshotted into this application's own files — nothing hot-links a government server at view time, and no layer costs a property-lookup credit.
What each layer is for
Flooding
Flood zones. Check a parcel or corridor against the
regulatory floodplain before you zone it, buy it, or build on it.
Future heavy rain. Compare how often each tract will see
two-inch rain days by mid-century, and size drainage where the increase is steepest.
Extreme heat
Measured heat. Find the blocks that ran hottest on an
August afternoon, down to the street.
Future hot days. Overlay projected days at or above
95 °F on vulnerability to find neighbourhoods that are both hot and exposed.
Pavement cover. Spot the tracts where impervious surface
drives both heat and runoff.
Severe weather
Tornado paths. Every rated tornado track since 1950,
against the neighbourhoods that exist today — the record rather than the reputation.
Hail and damaging wind. Hail is the largest driver of
property insurance claims in this market and leaves no trace on any other layer. Read the
report density before pricing a roof or a deductible.
Earthquakes. Oklahoma's shaking is induced, it peaked in
the mid-2010s, and it has fallen sharply since disposal was restricted — the decline
matters to an underwriter as much as the peak.
Past storms & storm costs. Filter decades of tornado,
hail, wind and flood reports by type and era, and rank counties by inflation-adjusted losses.
People & vulnerability
Vulnerability (SVI). Layer any hazard over the Social
Vulnerability Index to see who has the least capacity to prepare and recover.
People. Switch the lens to seniors, young children,
poverty, or car-free households.
Loss & insurance
Expected annual loss. A dollar figure for what hazards are
expected to cost a tract each year.
Flood claims paid. Where the NFIP has actually written
cheques — which is not the same map as the regulatory floodplain. Claims
regularly land outside the mapped high-risk zone.
Property & market
Price trend. Which tracts have moved most over five years,
before setting an adjustment or arguing a trend.
Home values, rents and price-to-rent. Screen ZIPs on the
ratio an investor actually underwrites, rather than on price alone.
Jobs. Separate where people work from where they sleep
— what drives commute patterns, retail siting and multifamily demand.
Geographic coverage
Layers cover all 77 Oklahoma counties — 1,205 census tracts, 77 counties, 165 cities and 434 incorporated towns. Three sources are narrower than the rest, and it is worth knowing which before you read a blank area as "no risk":
Measured heat is Oklahoma City only. It is a single NOAA/CAPA field campaign
run on 12 August 2023, not a modelled surface. Everywhere without a campaign is genuinely
blank, and always will be. Use Future hot days for statewide heat.
Market layers thin out in rural counties. Zillow and Redfin publish where
they observe enough transactions, so western and far-southeastern counties have gaps. Those
gaps are shown honestly rather than interpolated.
Flood zones load county by county. Statewide the layer is far too large to
send at once, so it fetches the counties in view as you pan, and asks you to zoom in when
more than eight counties are on screen. A county with no polygons means FEMA has published no
effective NFHL panels there — not that flooding is impossible.
Data sources and credits
The market layers (Zillow, Redfin) are free to use with attribution but are commercial market indicators, not public records. They support market analysis; they are not appraisals and not comparable sales.
| Dataset | Publisher | Used for | License / credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Flood Hazard Layer (snapshot) | FEMA | Flood zones, tract SFHA shares | U.S. Government work. Credit: FEMA. |
| National Risk Index (census tracts) | FEMA | Expected annual loss by hazard | U.S. Government work. Credit: FEMA. Modelled screening estimates, not a property-level appraisal. |
| NFIP redacted claims | FEMA (OpenFEMA) | Flood claims paid, by tract | U.S. Government work. Credit: FEMA. Claim locations are redacted to the tract. |
| Severe weather GIS: tornado tracks, 1950–2025 | NOAA Storm Prediction Center | Tornado path layer | U.S. Government work. Credit: NOAA SPC. |
| Severe weather GIS: hail and wind, 1955–2025 | NOAA Storm Prediction Center | Hail and damaging wind layers | U.S. Government work. Credit: NOAA SPC. Observer reports, so density reflects reporting as well as occurrence. |
| Storm Events Database, 1950–2026 | NOAA NCEI | Event points, damage choropleth | U.S. Government work. Credit: NOAA NCEI. |
| CMRA Screening Data (tract summaries) | Interagency (resilience.climate.gov / USGCRP) | Projected heat days, 2-inch rain days | U.S. Government work. Credit: CMRA. |
| Urban Heat Watch, Oklahoma City, 12 Aug 2023 | NOAA NIHHIS + CAPA Strategies | Measured heat traverse points | Public campaign data. Credit: NIHHIS / CAPA Strategies. Oklahoma City only — see coverage above. |
| Earthquake catalogue | USGS | Earthquake epicentre layer | U.S. Government work. Credit: USGS. |
| Social Vulnerability Index 2022 | CDC / ATSDR | Vulnerability layer | Public domain. Credit: CDC/ATSDR. |
| ACS 5-year estimates 2018–2022 | U.S. Census Bureau | People layer | Public domain. Credit: U.S. Census Bureau. |
| TIGER/Line cartographic boundaries 2024 | U.S. Census Bureau | Tracts, county, city and town outlines and labels | Public domain. Credit: U.S. Census Bureau. |
| LEHD LODES 2023 | U.S. Census Bureau | Job density | Public domain. Credit: U.S. Census Bureau. Covers jobs under state unemployment insurance, so most self-employment is absent. |
| NLCD 2021 impervious surface | USGS / MRLC | Pavement cover layer | Public domain. Credit: USGS/MRLC. |
| Developmental house price index (tracts) | FHFA | Price trend layer | U.S. Government work. Credit: FHFA. A repeat-sales index, not a valuation; thin-sales tracts are noisy. |
| ZHVI and ZORI, ZIP level | Zillow Research | Home value, rent, price-to-rent | Free with attribution. Credit: Zillow. A smoothed index over the homes Zillow observes, not a complete sales record. |
| County market tracker | Redfin Data Center | Median sale price, days on market, supply | Free with attribution. Credit: Redfin. MLS-derived county aggregates — market analysis, not comparable sales. |
| Building Permits Survey | U.S. Census Bureau | Permitted units and construction value | Public domain. Credit: U.S. Census Bureau. |
| CPI-U (CPIAUCSL) | U.S. BLS via FRED | Inflation adjustment of storm damages | Public data. Credit: BLS / FRED. |
Excluded by license: First Street / Risk Factor (proprietary) and Google Maps data.
Methodology & assumptions
- Class breaks are quantiles computed across the full statewide dataset, so a tract's colour means the same thing wherever you pan. Five classes plus an explicit "no data" shade — a tract the source could not score is drawn differently from a tract that scored zero.
- Missing data is never silently zero. Federal sources encode "no answer" as large negative integers (ACS uses −666666666; CDC SVI uses −999). These are nulled at build time and again at render, so they can never reach a colour ramp or an average.
- Storm damages are CPI-adjusted to current dollars with annual-average CPI-U before any comparison across decades.
- Flood zones are dissolved and simplified to roughly one-metre precision for display. Use the FEMA Map Service Center for a determination — this layer is a screening tool, not a LOMA.
- Tornado, hail and wind points are observer reports. Density reflects where people were watching as much as where storms occurred; rural counties are under-reported in the early decades of the record.
These layers screen; they do not determine. Every dataset here is a modelled
or reported regional estimate. None is a substitute for a survey, an appraisal, a flood
determination, or a project-level FEMA benefit-cost analysis.
Looking for usage help instead? See the how-to guide.
Layer definitions, colour ramps and this source list are shared with the standalone
Oklahoma Climate Resilience Atlas, which is the origin of this data pipeline.
Basemap data © OpenStreetMap contributors.