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About the UK Situation Map

Independent, not an official service. The map is a hobby project that gathers public feeds and shows them as received; it is not connected to any government body, emergency service, operator or company named on it, and it must not be used for navigation, flight, safety or emergency decisions. Operator names and emblems identify who runs something, not an endorsement.

One always-on map of the United Kingdom that brings together aviation, maritime, emergency services, weather, flooding, energy infrastructure, roads, space weather, seismic activity and breaking news, all from published public data.

What is on the map

Aviation

• Every aircraft broadcasting ADS-B over the UK and surrounding waters, with altitude, speed and heading.
• Military aircraft of the RAF, US Air Force, Army Air Corps, Royal Navy and visiting air forces, with a colour-coded estimate of which military airfield they may be heading for.
• Police aviation (NPAS, Police Scotland, PSNI), air ambulances and HEMS helicopters, HM Coastguard search-and-rescue aircraft.
• Emergency squawks 7700 (emergency), 7600 (radio failure) and 7500 (unlawful interference), with an alert and a pulsing marker.
• Recent trails for military and emergency-service aircraft, 21 military airfields and 30 Army and Royal Marines bases.

Maritime

• Live AIS positions for vessels around the UK, with Royal Navy and other military ships, RNLI lifeboats, coastguard and search-and-rescue craft, police and government vessels picked out.
• AIS-SART, man-overboard and EPIRB distress transmitters, which raise an alert the moment they appear.

Weather and environment

• Met Office severe weather warnings by region, live lightning strikes, and current conditions for 26 UK locations.
• Flood alerts, warnings and severe warnings from the Environment Agency (England), SEPA (Scotland) and Natural Resources Wales, plus river gauges running above their typical range and bathing-water pollution alerts.

Energy and infrastructure

• Great Britain electricity demand, the generation mix and carbon intensity; National Gas supply by terminal, demand by sector, linepack and storage, with every gas terminal, LNG port, storage site and interconnector on the map.
• Live power cuts from all six distribution network operators: National Grid Electricity Distribution, SSEN, UK Power Networks, Northern Powergrid, Electricity North West and SP Energy Networks.
• National Highways road and lane closures, temporary speed restrictions and the live text on more than a thousand motorway gantry and roadside signs.

Space and geological activity

• NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center Kp index, R/S/G storm scales and the aurora probability forecast over the UK.
• Earthquakes from the British Geological Survey and USGS, and bright meteors and fireballs recorded by UK Meteor Network cameras.

News and incidents

• BBC headlines for the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, placed on the map by the location in the story and graded by severity, with automatic expiry.

Data sources and attribution

Every feed, live

Generated from the running server at Tue, 27 Oct 2026 04:03:03 GMT; feeds marked "needs a key" are configured but waiting for credentials.

How it works

A server polls or streams each source, turns everything into one common format, stores it in a database and pushes changes to the browser over a live connection every two seconds. Items expire automatically when a source stops reporting them, so the map never shows stale incidents. The dashboard is designed for a full-screen, always-on display and reloads itself once a day.

To keep the national view readable, civil traffic is hidden until you zoom in, labels appear progressively, and the Focus button hides everything except military, emergency-service and alert layers. Layer choices are remembered in your browser.

Frequently asked questions

How often does it update?

Aircraft every 20 seconds, vessels and lightning continuously, everything else every 3 to 15 minutes depending on the source.

Why can't I see every aircraft and ship?

Civil airliners and ordinary shipping are hidden at the national view. Switch them on in Layers, or zoom in to level 6 for aircraft and 7 for vessels.

Is this an official emergency information service?

No. It is an independent dashboard built on public data, which can be delayed or unavailable. For warnings that affect you, use the Met Office, the Environment Agency, SEPA, Natural Resources Wales or your electricity network operator directly.

How are police, air ambulance and coastguard aircraft identified?

From registrations, callsign conventions (NPAS, UKP, HLE, HELIMED, CG, SRG), operator records and the ICAO address blocks reserved for UK and US military aircraft. Classification is automatic and occasionally wrong.

What do the colours mean?

Red is military or a high-severity alert, blue is police, yellow is air ambulance, orange is coastguard and SAR, grey is civil traffic. Flood and weather markers use the official yellow, amber and red levels. Pulsing halos mark emergency squawks and AIS distress beacons.

How accurate is the military destination prediction?

It is a heuristic based on heading, distance and descent rate against the list of military airfields, and it says so with a confidence level. Treat it as a hint, not a fact.