The map above simulates a 300-kiloton nuclear airburst over New York, USA — roughly the size of a modern deployed warhead. The coloured rings show the estimated fireball, the zones of heavy, moderate and light blast damage, the reach of the thermal flash and the ionizing-radiation dose. Drag the marker or change the weapon in the full simulator to explore other scenarios.
The metropolitan area is home to about 19.5 million people — the rings above are drawn to real scale over their homes.
The marker is on City Hall in Lower Manhattan. The 1.9 km zone of total destruction covers the Financial District, One World Trade Center, Chinatown, Tribeca and the Brooklyn Bridge; the 4.7 km collapse ring reaches SoHo, the East Village, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO and the Jersey City waterfront. Third-degree burns extend to about 7.5 km — Union Square, Williamsburg, Red Hook, Hoboken — and the 14.5 km ring of broken windows covers Midtown up to Central Park's southern end, Long Island City, Park Slope, Bay Ridge and Newark's eastern edge.
Manhattan's 1.6 million residents and a weekday population over three million make this the densest scenario in the United States. The skyscrapers would shield some streets from the flash while funnelling blast down others, which the simple rings cannot capture. During the Cold War New York was assumed to be a multi-warhead target; the 800-kiloton Topol scenario and the 100-megaton extreme show the range.
Language 
