Will Koeppen
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Will Koeppen
@willkoeppen.com
110 followers 96 following 28 posts
Data science, place-based photography, connecting with people in the outdoors, milkshakes
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I made a data-driven visual of the July 4 flooding along the upper Guadalupe River, which killed 119 people in Kerr County Texas. Stream gauges show that water rose by 4 feet every 5 minutes in the town of Kerrville.
The July 4 Guadalupe River Flood, Gauge by Gauge
On July 4th, 2025, the Guadalupe River rose at incredible rates between Camp Mystic and the Canyon Lake reservoir.
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August 20, 2025 at 5:23 PM
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Cross-posting this animation I made of bird flu outbreaks on poultry farms in the United States. Every state has had poultry killed, including Alaska and Hawaii.
Mass Deaths in American Poultry
Bird flu has killed hundreds of millions of farm-raised chickens, turkeys, and ducks since 2022. It's not done yet.
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May 28, 2025 at 1:15 AM
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The garden had me thinking about physically- vs digitally-created experiences
A woman looks up at a flowering cherry tree as the petals blow around her. An air plant grows into a circle, the leaves curling into spirals. A close up of the bunches of tiny petals of a cherry tree Rows of different colored tulips — red, yellow, and fire — pop up in the garden.
March 23, 2025 at 4:12 PM
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The clouds over eastern Pennsylvania last night
An image taken from a plane. A fuzzy, ambiguous horizon rises above a swirl of pink and blue clouds.
March 20, 2025 at 8:32 PM
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Southern live oak trees, Savannah and New Orleans
A large southern live oak tree in front of a brick apartment building in downtown Savannah. The tree is over four stories tall, covered in ivy, and spreads its thick limbs in a lightning bolt-like pattern. A large southern live oak tree in front of a brick apartment building in downtown New Orleans. The tree is over four stories tall, covered in ivy, and spreads its thick limbs in a lightning bolt-like pattern. In this one, the building is also covered in a mat of climbing ivy.
February 28, 2025 at 4:58 PM
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We went to #MardiGras for the weekend. The parades were basically infinite compared to the one in McCarthy, AK.
A young girl dressed like a princess waves from a parade float shaped like a giant fish. A float filled with people dressed as flamingos and tigers throws candy, beads, and toy footballs to a cheering crowd. A bass drum player from George Washington Carver High School is dressed in a green and red uniform with a plumed cap. He clicks his sticks together marking the start of the next song. Later in the evening, the street is mostly dark but still lined with people as the parades march on into the night. Behind the crowd is a small food truck that reads "chicken on a stick", "Polish sausage corn dogs", and "super dog nachos".
February 25, 2025 at 6:24 PM
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Denali break (in the clouds) #AlaskaSky
Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, as seen from the north side near Wonder Lake. The base of the mountain is dark and under clouds, but the top emerges above it all.
February 16, 2025 at 7:36 PM
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Denali break
Landscape photo showing Mt. Denali behind waves of mountains and the Chulitna River just after sunset.
February 15, 2025 at 7:31 PM
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This "immutable biology" argument is so dumb, but I've seen it crop up when people try to add a sprinkle of science to beliefs that have no basis in science. Meanwhile, Yuval Harari: "Biology enables, culture forbids." www.atsdr.cdc.gov/place-health...
Screenshot of the CDC's webpage for their Social Vulnerability Index, which is a county-level measure of how vulnerable the people who live there are to natural or human-caused disasters. Above the index is a newly-added banner that reads the following: "Per a court order, HHS is required to restore this website as of 11:59PM ET, February 11, 2025. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female. The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department rejects it."
February 15, 2025 at 6:26 PM
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Photos that remind me of visualizing data
A series of power lines stretching across the sky, some with anti-swing balls that look like data points.
February 13, 2025 at 6:46 PM
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Really interesting work showing that humans in dense crowds are odd frictional matter in a closed container. The referenced Nature paper is excellent, but the NYT has videos.
The Physics That Keeps a Crowd From Becoming a Stampede (Gift Article)
A group of scientists studying the San Fermín festival in Pamplona, Spain, believe there’s a way to predict the motions of a large crowd.
www.nytimes.com
February 12, 2025 at 3:58 PM
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Photos that remind me of visualizing data
The weathered side of a signboard, whose whorls look like a topographic map.
February 11, 2025 at 8:37 PM
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Photos that remind me of visualizing data (2 of a few)
A planter box with stylized flowers that look a lot like a graph.
February 10, 2025 at 2:30 PM
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A short series of photos that remind me of visualizing data (1 of a few)
A plank fence, the top of which is reminiscent of a bar chart. A sign in the lower left says "Warning, strange dog."
February 7, 2025 at 4:41 PM
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I had a drone for a spell. It tickled my geology fancy. #SeaIce #mudflats #Alaska
February 4, 2025 at 8:24 PM
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Now with words! Writing this up (and moving from python to js) was a form of data therapy for me. Comments welcome.
#ddj #datajournalism
Trump by a Landslide
If Donald Trump won the 2024 election by a landslide, what should we call past US election results?
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February 3, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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Trump and crew have claimed he won the 2024 election by a "landslide" (thus claiming a mandate). I normalized past election results to Trump's margins to find out how many Trump-sized landslides past US presidents have won by. 📊
A graph showing the popular vote margin in units of "Trump Landslides". Using these units, we see that he lost the 2016 election by 1.5 landslides, Obama's 2008 win amounted to ~5 landslides, and John F. Kennedy won by just 0.1 landslide. A graph showing the electoral college margin in units of "Trump Landslides". Using these units, we find that in 2016 (although he lost the popular vote by 1.5 landslides) he won the election by 0.8 landslides. Trump's results just barely outpaced Joe Biden in 2020, who won by 0.9 landslides. Presidents that truly wiped the map, like Ronald Regan in 1984, Richard Nixon in 1972, or Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 won by 4-6 of Trump's landslides.
January 28, 2025 at 10:03 PM
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An invasive dinosaur, scientific name Iguanaiguana, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They were brought as pets in the 1970s, escaped (or were released), and now enjoy eating crops, undercutting local infrastructure with burrows, and outnumbering humans on the island. More info: youtu.be/xNtR_7qXwr0?...
January 27, 2025 at 4:49 PM
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Atlanta has seen its snowiest season in 8 years.
The Clermont Hotel on Ponce De Leon Ave in Atlanta, the sign and cars in the foreground covered in a light layer of snow. A man salts the entranceway. A closeup of one of the installations from Tiny Doors ATL, a public art project that places doors (~5 inches high) in surprising places around the city. The drifted snow reaches almost to the top of the red model door.
January 23, 2025 at 2:52 PM