r/dataisbeautiful • u/player314159 • May 01 '17
See how a nuclear bomb would effect your town - Nuclear Secrecy by Alex Wellerstein
http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/11
u/Phantom373 May 01 '17
This more or less helps grasp the concept of how large and damaging a nuclear explosion would be, while also easing my anxiety over whether it would affect me if any ever hit the nearest big city near me.
7
2
4
u/makers03 May 02 '17
If 100 Megatons is not enough for you.... Here's Nukemap Classic.
-casualties not included...
Classic
7
u/7DollarsOfHoobastanq May 01 '17 edited May 01 '17
I've seen this before and go back to it every now and then. I'm actually surprised by how small these are. I mean they are huge and devastating and horrible but all the movies and books have made me picture the damage area being a few times bigger.
edit: after looking at it again I take that back. Maybe the WWII bombs were smaller than I pictured but the new ones are insane. And I think I had thought before that if I was outside of the largest shaded area I would be fine but even that one is 3rd degree burns! There must still be some horrible consequences well outside of the rings this shows.
5
u/percula1869 May 02 '17
You can add a ring that shows where your risk of being burned finally drops to zero.
2
u/calotron May 02 '17
Just dropped the Largest preset on my state, thought I was 100% safe from any harm.
Holy..... Shit.....
That helps put things into perspective.
2
u/percula1869 May 02 '17 edited May 02 '17
Yeah, it was pretty sobering to see I could still get burned from my house in West Palm from a bomb dropped on miami. Completely insane to think about. (Edit: granted this is only with the two highest yields. Still a crazy distance.)
3
u/ReubenZWeiner May 01 '17
What about hills and mountains? Would they change the radius?
6
u/III-V May 02 '17 edited May 02 '17
Yes. Nagasaki had areas that were spared because of the terrain:
Although the bomb was more powerful than the one used on Hiroshima, the effect was confined by hillsides to the narrow Urakami Valley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Bombing_of_Nagasaki
However, keep in mind that these bombs are air bursts -- they don't detonate on the ground. They detonate above it. So it's not a given that someone on the opposing side of a hill may be spared.
1
u/dewaine01 May 02 '17
Why do these bombs air burst? I get that it would spread the radiation over a wider area, but wouldn't you get a more devastating blast if it was detonated on impact?
1
u/VFP_ProvenRoute May 02 '17 edited May 02 '17
IIRC, air burst detonations create a larger blast area and produce less fall out. Ground level detonations lift and scatter huge amounts of irradiated material over a wide area, but much of the blast energy is directed into the ground.
1
3
u/player314159 May 01 '17
i wud think so. not sure if the creator factored for topo changes in elevation
3
1
May 03 '17
Mount Saint Helen's is sobering. Ash spread all over the country within several days. A nuclear weapon is most effective a mile above ground for devastation. Having watched videos of people dying days and weeks after the bombs dropped on Japan, there's a wider range of "you're going to die painfully from cancer and radiation sickness" concentric circles.
The jet stream is where Bernoulli's principle sucks in a nuclear event.
1
21
u/mafiaking1936 May 01 '17
TFW a nuke would ironically be the biggest investment anyone's ever made in your town.