Reference
What this map shows, and what it means
Four layers from four sources, each with its own grading and its own limits. This page is where those are written down, so the map itself can stay a map.
Red and orange alerts
Two different services grade what they publish, on two different scales, and the map shows only the top two steps of each. A grade is the issuing service's own judgement — never ours.
Red alert
The most serious thing either service issues. Act on it: it means severe impact is expected, not merely possible.
Orange alert
Serious enough to change a plan. Expect disruption, and check the issuing service before you set out.
Disasters, graded by GDACS
GDACS grades an earthquake, flood, cyclone, wildfire or volcano by its likely humanitarian impact — how much ground moved and how many people live on it, not the magnitude alone. Green is the routine background of a working planet and is not drawn here.
Weather, graded by the national met services
A weather warning is graded by the country's own meteorological service and published through MeteoAlarm. Their scale has four steps; the map shows the top two. Yellow means ordinary bad weather, and a map carrying every yellow warning in Europe would be a map of Europe.
Bright marker: in force now. Pale marker: issued for later.
Weather warnings reach about two days ahead. Nothing further is forecast.
Europe only, from the national met services via MeteoAlarm.
Markers sit on the country, not the exact area, and are spread apart where several share a spot.
A marker is where GDACS puts the event: a volcano or fire exactly, a storm where it was last seen, a flood at the centre of the area affected.
Levels
Reporting a scam helps the next traveller, and a level is how that adds up. It is on your own profile and nowhere else unless you ask to be listed.
How points are earned
Points rather than a count of reports, on purpose. Rewarding volume alone would reward filing more, and the cheapest way to file more is to file worse — on a map people use to decide where to walk, that is the failure that matters. So the heaviest thing you can earn is somebody else recognising what you reported.
Points are for life. A report that has aged off the map was still filed. Withdrawing one takes its points back, because withdrawing deletes it.
The ten levels
Badges
Points measure reports filed and recognised. They say nothing about somebody who makes videos about street scams and sends their audience here, who may be the most useful contributor on the site while never filing a report. That is what a badge is for. They are given by hand, and they change nothing about how anybody's reports are shown.
Where all of it comes from
What this is not
Not an alert service — check official sources before you travel.
Reports are unverified accounts from the public. They are what somebody says happened, which is useful and is not the same as a fact. Confirmations from other people are the only weight behind any of them.
In an emergency, contact local emergency services first. Nothing here reaches anybody.