This is issue No. 393 of the Process, where we aim for surprise and interest in visualization. Just say no to defaults. I’m Nathan Yau. This week, we set expectations in analysis to better prepare for the unexpected.

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When you have that feeling that today is abnormally hot or cold for the time of year, historical context is useful to see if intuition matches reality. Reuters has you covered with a climate monitor that shows global temperature against a normal year.

The dashboard view has an interactive globe, the now familiar multi-line chart that aligns past years by day, and a time series by continent.

Tags: climate, Reuters, temperature

Going with the old school pile o’ money, NBC News illustrated the scale of the SpaceX IPO valuation against the Statue of Liberty, something that we know is quite large.

In the above, each block represents one million dollars, so a smaller denomination would make a bigger pile. And as of this writing, the market value for SpaceX is substantially higher. I’m no expert in company valuation, but this feels not ideal long-term.

Tags: money, NBC News, scale, SpaceX

The pandemic tested the strength of many relationships. Alvin Chang, for the Pudding, examined who stayed together and who did not over that time period. Divorce and separation were more common than usual.

At the end, you can explore the data and view the responses from each person. Plus claymation.

The project is based on the How Couples Meet and Stay Together dataset from researchers at Stanford University. Every few years they’ve run the survey, following up with the original respondents, which provides a longitudinal view of individual relationships. It’s one of my favorite datasets.

Tags: Alvin Chang, pandemic, relationships

The current proposal for the arch sets the height at 288 feet above sea level. The New York Times mapped air traffic in the Washington, D.C. area to show why that’s an issue.

Among maps that show flight paths from above, a view from ground level shows how close flights from April 2026 would have gotten if the arch existed. The view rotates 360 degrees and makes the distance from arch to air traffic more obvious.

Tags: arch, flights, New York Times

Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire with the SpaceX initial public offering today. For Bloomberg, Ben Steverman, with illustrations by Tim Enthoven, provides a quick ridiculous overview of what $1 trillion gets you.

See also the Chalabi classic on Jeff Bezos wealth.

Tags: Bloomberg, Elon Musk, illustration, net worth, scale

The Apocalypse Early Warning System by Kyle McDonald was built on the premise that rich folks will use their private jets to get out quick in case of a global emergency.

This site watches a fixed cohort of business jets and asks a simple question: is the number currently airborne unusual for this time? It is not tracking all aircraft. The original version used an FAA-only business-jet list. The current tracker builds a broader global aircraft metadata table by merging ADS-B Exchange aircraft records, Mictronics/tar1090 records, and FAA registry data by ICAO hex. The importer classifies metadata into business jets, military aircraft, large airliners, regional airliners, non-jet aircraft, and other known types, then applies a practical business-jet filter. Each tracked aircraft is matched in live data by its ICAO hex identifier.

I think this is only partially tongue-in-cheek? Data is updated every half hour and you can sign up for updates through Telegram or text.

Tags: apocalypse, flights, Kyle McDonald

Another recent flip: Based on estimates from Ember, monthly solar-generated electricity reached an all-time high in May and coal reached an all-time low in April. It looks like it won’t be long until both solar and wind consistently beat coal.

Tags: coal, difference, Ember, solar

Speaking of when data flips, last night in game four of the 2026 NBA Finals, the New York Knicks were down by as much as 29 points to the San Antonio Spurs. According to Mike Beuoy of Inpredictable, there was a less than 5% chance of the Knicks winning by the middle of the second quarter. With nine minutes left, the Knicks had a less than 1% chance.

Then began the biggest collapse in NBA Finals history by the San Antonio Spurs.

Tags: basketball, Inpredictable, probability, wins

This is issue No. 392 of the Process, where we make charts that pull focus, because letting the data speak is for chumps. I’m Nathan Yau. This week, we focus on when there is a sudden change or flip in the data that you want to highlight.

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The New York Times counted Elon Musk’s promises on X/Twitter and Tesla earnings calls since 2011. Over the years, there have been more declarations, but the number of achievements per year changed little in the past five years. Instead, the rate of non-achievements appears to be rising.

Tags: Elon Musk, goals, New York Times