About
Heimdall Research publishes open geospatial datasets and research on storms, power outages, lakes and reservoirs, and Arctic sea ice, from satellite imagery. The pages for that work are on heimdallresearch.com.
The name
In Norse mythology, Heimdall is the watchman of the gods, said to see a hundred leagues by day or night. A lot of our work is watching large areas over long stretches of time, so the name fit.
What we have shipped
Dated, and each one can be checked at its source.
Arctic Open-Water Window 1.1, Western Terminal Lakes 1.1 and Storm Blackout and Restoration 1.215 gates, 19 series on 18 lakes and 672 storms. Published on Zenodo, Hugging Face and Kaggle. Open datasets.
Western Terminal Lakes 1.0Monthly open-water area for 7 series on 6 western terminal lakes since 2019. Published on Kaggle.
Arctic Open-Water Window 1.0Open-water seasons at three Arctic passage gates, 1979 to 2025. Published with DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23021978 on Zenodo, Hugging Face and Kaggle.
Storm Blackout and Restoration 1.1County results for 31 storms. Published on Kaggle. Dataset page.
Data API and MCP serverOne key for the REST API and for AI coding assistants such as Claude Code and Cursor. Developer documentation.
Satellite observationsSix dated observations from Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and NAIP imagery, each with its sources. See the observations.
Where our data comes from
Published datasets and observations use government scientific data and imagery. The regulatory, decision and court records are sources for planned products and custom work.
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Federal regulatory publications
The official daily record of federal rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It shows when an agency starts, changes, or finishes an action, with dates and the documents behind it.
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Agency decision records
Final decisions, findings, and supporting documents that federal and state agencies publish for major actions. They record what was decided, by whom, and on what basis.
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Court and administrative filings
Complaints, opinions, and orders from courts and administrative appeal boards. They show where a decision was challenged and how the challenge was resolved.
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State regulatory records
Permits, inspections, well and site registries, and enforcement records kept by state agencies. Detail and quality vary a great deal from state to state.
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Government scientific data
Measurements and models published by federal science agencies, such as stream gauges, lake levels, sea ice, weather, elevation, and land cover. They are usually long-running and well documented.
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Multispectral satellite imagery
Images that record visible light plus bands the eye cannot see, such as near and shortwave infrared. They help separate water, vegetation, bare ground, salt, and burned areas, and they revisit most places every few days.
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Synthetic aperture radar
Radar images taken from satellites. They work day or night and through cloud, which makes them useful for sea ice, flooding, surface change, and small ground movements.
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Aerial orthoimagery
High-resolution photographs taken from aircraft and corrected so that positions line up with a map. They show fine detail that satellite imagery is too coarse to resolve.
Get in touch
For projects, collaborations, or questions about our data.
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