# Tempest Radar — User Guide Everything in the console floats over a full-screen MapLibre GL map. This guide walks through each feature. All screenshots are from a live instance. --- ## The main console ![Main console](img/01-main.png) | Element | Where | What it does | |---|---|---| | ☰ menu button | top-left | Opens the main menu (settings, overlays, wall…) | | LOOP / LEVEL 2 / WINDY | top-left | Switches the radar view mode | | SITE pill | top-center | Pick any NEXRAD site (or type a 4-letter ID) | | Alerts pill | top-right | Active alert count; red + pulsing on extreme alerts | | Telemetry cards | right rail | Live Tempest station data (see below) | | Playback bar | bottom-center | Play/pause, frame scrubber, animation speed, radar opacity | | FRAMES pill | bottom-left | Loop length, storm-track toggle, basemap picker | | PRODUCT pill | bottom-right | Radar product (reflectivity, velocity, …) | | News / weather tickers | top edge | Breaking news + severe weather headlines | Every panel can be moved, resized, or hidden: open **☰ → ✎ Edit layout**, drag panels where you want them, then press *done*. Layouts can be exported/imported as JSON. --- ## The menu ![Menu](img/02-menu.png) - **⚠ Alert settings** — choose which alert types you see - **🗺 Data overlays** — SPC outlooks, mesoscale discussions, storm reports… - **⌖ Custom locations** — named pins with optional photos - **▦ Weather wall** — full-screen TV dashboard at `/wall` - **✎ Edit layout** — drag/resize/hide any panel - **⚙ Settings** — Tempest station, location, ticker feeds - Alert sound toggle and theme picker (5 built-in themes; custom themes can be added via `data/themes.json`) --- ## Radar modes ### LOOP — tile animation Animated NEXRAD imagery for any site, up to 50 frames, with product switching in the bottom-right pill. Frames are smoothed on the GPU so the radar looks broadcast-crisp instead of pixelated. The **op** slider dims the radar without dimming roads/labels (which render *above* the weather). ### LEVEL 2 — raw super-res Decodes raw NEXRAD Archive II volumes server-side and renders them with a WebGL custom layer: every tilt, every moment (REF/VEL/SW/ZDR/RHO/PHI), palette switching, and a **smooth** toggle. This is the highest-fidelity view — use it during active severe weather. ### WINDY — model overlays Embeds Windy with a **LAYER** picker (radar, satellite, wind, thunderstorms, air quality, waves, fires, EFI extreme-forecast indices — 40+ layers) and a **LEVEL** picker (surface up to 150 hPa). ![Windy mode](img/08-windy.png) --- ## Weather alert settings **☰ → ⚠ Alert settings** ![Alert settings](img/03-alert-settings.png) A master switch, category tabs (**Storm Based, Tropical, Winter, Non-Precip, Hydro, Watches**), a per-category master, and an individual toggle for every NWS event type. Whatever you switch off disappears everywhere at once — badge count, banner, map polygons, detail list, and sounds. Unlisted event types always show, so nothing exotic slips past silently. Choices persist per browser. --- ## Data overlays **☰ → 🗺 Data overlays** ![Overlay picker](img/04-overlays.png) Free live feeds (no API keys), refreshed every 5 minutes, proxied and cached by the backend: | Overlay | Source | Click a feature for… | |---|---|---| | Severe wx outlook — today / tomorrow | SPC | risk category, valid window | | Mesoscale discussions | SPC via IEM | concerning line + link to full MD text | | SPC watches | IEM | watch number, issue/expire (TOR red, SVR yellow) | | Local storm reports (6 h) | IEM | event, magnitude, county, spotter remarks | | METARs — surface obs | AviationWeather | temp, dew point, wind, visibility, raw ob (dots colored by flight category) | ![Outlook polygons on the map](img/05-overlays-map.png) --- ## Storm tracks Enable the **tracks** checkbox in the FRAMES pill. ![Storm tracks](img/07-storm-tracks.png) Each radar-identified cell draws with a dashed projected track and dots at +15/30/45/60 minutes. Cells are white; a detected **mesocyclone turns the cell orange** and a **TVS (tornado vortex signature) turns it red**. Click any cell for its attributes: motion, max dBZ, VIL, and hail probabilities — with a warning banner when a meso/TVS is flagged. --- ## Custom locations **☰ → ⌖ Custom locations** ![Custom locations](img/06-locations.png) - Add unlimited named pins by **address search** or by **clicking the map** - Click a row (or a pin) to fly there; ✕ removes it - The **🖼 button uploads a custom image** — the pin becomes a circular photo marker (images are resized in-browser and stored server-side, so they appear on every device) - Locations live in `data/config.json`, surviving restarts --- ## Weather wall (TV mode) **☰ → ▦ Weather wall**, or open `http://:5555/wall` ![Weather wall](img/09-wall.png) A full-screen grid for a wall-mounted TV: Windy layers, aircraft (ADS-B Exchange / airplanes.live / adsb.fi), ships (VesselFinder / MarineTraffic), lightning, your station card, a clock, or **any custom URL**. Click ✎ to change what each tile shows, set the column count, and use ⛶ for fullscreen. The bottom bar has a clock, moon phase, active-alert readout, and an optional NOAA tide chart. --- ## Station telemetry & history The right-rail cards show live Tempest data (wind updates ~every 3 s over WebSocket). Click any card title for 24 h / 3 d / 7 d history charts. The lightning card lights up with strike distance in real time. ## Themes & basemaps Five built-in themes (Storm Console, Midnight OLED, Daylight, Phosphor Terminal, Chaser Amber). 17 basemaps, including **dark · streets + towns** — a near-black canvas with bright streets, highway shields, and town labels that stay readable *above* the radar. ## Tips - Spacebar toggles radar playback. - The site can also be changed by clicking any radar-site dot on the map. - Everything configured in ⚙ Settings is stored in `data/config.json` — back up the `data/` folder to keep your config, locations, and photos.