Real-time L2 radar built for fast severe weather decisions.

StormDeck is a portable application — no installation required. Download the .exe (Windows) or .AppImage (Linux), run it, and you are operational.

1. Download and run

   Double-click the downloaded file. Windows may show a SmartScreen prompt the first time — click More info → Run anyway. The app does not require administrator rights.

2. Set your location

   Type a city, address, or coordinates into the search bar at the top and press Enter. StormDeck will geocode the address, center the map, and auto-select the nearest NEXRAD site.

3. Data loads automatically

   Radar imagery, NWS alerts, storm reports, storm cells, and current weather conditions all fetch on startup and refresh on the configured interval. No manual polling needed.

4. Save your settings

   Open the ⚙️ Settings panel to pin a default location, radar site, and preferred AI provider so the app is ready instantly on next launch.

The search bar in the header controls the map center and auto-selects the nearest radar site.

• Search: Type any city name, full address, or decimal lat/lon (e.g., 35.46,-97.52) and press Enter.
• History: The last 10 searches appear as autocomplete suggestions in the dropdown.
• Save to Favorites: Click the ⭐ star button to save the current location with a custom name.
• Load a Favorite: Click the 📍 pin button to open the favorites dropdown. Click any entry to jump to it. Click ✕ to delete it.
• Default Location: Set a default address in Settings → Radar & Location so the app opens centered on your area every time.

Every time you navigate to a new location, weather conditions, alerts, and the nearest radar site all update automatically.

Use the product dropdown in the bottom-left radar controls to switch between Level 3 composites and native Level 2 products.

Level 3 Composites

These are pre-rendered NWS/IEM composite tiles — fast loading, nationwide coverage, no tilt selection required.

Site-Specific Radar

The site selector next to the product dropdown lets you pin to any NEXRAD WSR-88D or TDWR airport radar. StormDeck includes 150+ NEXRAD and 40+ TDWR sites. Leave it on Auto and it will always use the closest site to your map center.

Auto-Refresh

Use the refresh interval selector (1 / 2 / 5 / 10 minutes) to set how often radar tiles reload automatically. Press R at any time to force an immediate refresh.

Selecting REF, VEL, or RHO from the product dropdown switches to true Level 2 rendering — raw binary volumes fetched from IEM Mesonet and parsed on-device, then rendered in a high-resolution 2500×2500 px off-screen canvas.

Available L2 Products

Tilt Selection

When an L2 product is active, a tilt selector (elevation angles 1–16) appears. Tilt 1 is the 0.5° base scan. Higher tilts provide cross-sections at steeper angles useful for diagnosing storm structure, storm-top divergence, and hail cores.

Data Sources & Fallback

StormDeck first pulls from IEM Mesonet. If data becomes stale (older than 8 minutes), it automatically switches to the Unidata S3 archive and back. An LRU cache stores the last 15 volumes and 50 products locally to minimize re-downloads.

Click the Split icon in the top-right map controls to divide the main map area into two synchronized panels. Both panels share the same map position and zoom level.

Quick Presets

Above the secondary panel, one-click preset buttons configure both panels at once:

• Base Ref + Velocity — REF & VEL, same tilt
• Base Ref + Storm-Rel Velocity — n0q & n0s composite pair
• Reflectivity + Correlation Coefficient — REF & RHO for debris and hail detection

Independent Controls

Each panel has its own product, tilt, and site dropdowns. You can compare two entirely different sites or products at any combination. Snapshots and recordings capture both panels side-by-side.

StormDeck maintains a local loop of recent radar frames. Use the timeline controls at the bottom of the map to navigate them.

• Frame Count: Set 1–25 frames in Settings (default 10). More frames = deeper history but slower load on first fetch.
• Animation Speed: Set 0.5s–5.0s per frame in Settings (default 1.5s).
• Scrub Bar: Drag the timeline slider to jump directly to any frame. The timestamp of the active frame is shown above the bar.
• Play / Pause: Click the play button or press Space.
• Frame Step: Press ← / → to step one frame at a time (stops playback).
• Live Frame: The most recent frame is always marked. Stepping to it resumes normal real-time display.

Alerts are polled nationwide every 30 seconds. Active polygons are drawn on the map and listed in the right sidebar panel, sorted by threat severity.

Threat Tiers

Alert Controls

• Toggle alert layer: Use the Alerts checkbox in the bottom-right layer panel to show/hide polygons on the map.
• Filter by type: In Settings → Alerts, enable or disable individual NWS event types. Use Select All / Deselect All for bulk changes.
• Custom colors: Set distinct polygon colors for Watch, Warning, and Tornado Warning polygons in Settings → Alerts.
• Go To: Click the Go To button on any alert card in the sidebar to center the map on that polygon and load local weather.
• Audio alerts: Enable or disable beep tones in Settings → Alerts. Sounds are played only for new events that appear since the last poll.
• Storm report history: Set the LSR lookback window to 15 min, 30 min, 1h, 2h, or 4h in Settings → Alerts.

Mesoscale Discussions

Active SPC Mesoscale Discussions (up to 10) are shown in a dedicated sidebar panel below the alert list. Each MD shows a text excerpt with the affected area and threat summary.

Enable the Cells and Tracks layer toggles in the bottom-right panel to overlay IEM NEXRAD-derived storm cell positions and movement vectors.

• Cell markers are colored by severity: green (normal) → yellow (moderate) → red (severe), based on dual-polarization attributes.
• Track lines show each cell's recent path as a dashed line with time tick marks.
• Click any cell to display a 60-minute forward projection threat cone — a widening cone in the direction of movement showing where the storm is expected to be.

Enable Storm Reports in the layer toggle panel. Local Storm Reports from IEM are plotted as emoji markers on the map. Hover or click any marker for city, county, time, and magnitude details.

Adjust the lookback window (15 min – 4 hours) in Settings → Alerts → Storm Report Duration.

Enable Spotters in the layer toggle panel to show real-time Spotter Network positions as orange markers on the map. Positions update on each data refresh cycle. Click a marker to view the spotter's callsign and last reported time.

This is especially useful during active tornado events to confirm human observation coverage in the threat area.

Toggle Surface Obs in the layer panel to overlay weather station data within the current map bounds. Two sub-layers can be toggled independently:

• Temp / Dew: Temperature and dew point labels at each station position.
• Wind: SVG wind barbs showing speed (knot increments) and direction.

Right Sidebar — Current Conditions

The sidebar shows full conditions for your pinned location, including:

• Temperature, feels-like, dew point, humidity, pressure, visibility
• Wind speed, direction (compass), and gusts
• NWS weather icon + station name and update time
• CAPE (J/kg), CIN (J/kg), and Lifted Index — sourced from NWS, with automatic fallback to Open-Meteo
• 6-period extended forecast
• Active radar site status (Online / Operate / Maintenance) and VCP mode

The bottom-left map pill contains two precision tools. Click a button to activate the mode; click again to deactivate.

Inspector Tool (Crosshair icon)

Hover over any point on an active L2 radar layer to read the exact data value at that pixel:

• REF: dBZ value at cursor position
• VEL: Radial velocity in knots
• RHO: Correlation coefficient (0–1)

Values are read directly from the off-thread rendering buffer — not estimated from display color — giving 1:1 accuracy to the underlying data.

Distance Measurement Tool (Ruler icon)

Click a starting point on the map, then click an endpoint. A magenta dashed line is drawn and the distance is displayed in both Nautical Miles and statute miles. Click again to start a new measurement.

Open the chat panel by clicking the chat icon. The AI assistant has full access to StormDeck's real-time data and can autonomously call weather tools to answer your questions.

Choosing a Provider

Setting Up the AI

1. Open Settings → AI

   Select your provider from the dropdown.

2. Enter credentials

   For cloud providers, paste your API key. For Llama.cpp, enter your server URL (e.g., http://localhost:8080) and click Test to verify the connection.

3. Select a model

   Click Load Models to auto-populate the model list from your provider. Capability badges appear for each model: vision, thinking, tools.

4. Start chatting

   Type in the chat box and press Enter. The AI receives your current radar product, site, coordinates, and active alerts as automatic context.

Weather Tools

The AI can autonomously call these tools during a conversation (up to 4 rounds per response):

Vision & Image Attachment

Click the camera icon to attach the current radar frame as an image, or the paperclip to attach any local file. Vision-capable models (GPT-4o, Gemini, LLaVA, etc.) will analyze the image in context with your question. Enable Auto-attach Radar Image in Settings to send the radar frame automatically with every query.

Advanced LLM Parameters

In Settings → Advanced:

• Temperature (0–2.0): Lower = more deterministic. Use 0.1–0.4 for factual weather analysis.
• Max Tokens (64–131,072): Cap on response length.
• Top-P (0–1): Nucleus sampling threshold.
• Repeat Penalty (1.0–2.0): Reduces repetitive outputs in longer responses.
• System Prompt: Prepended to every conversation. Customize the AI's role, tone, or scope. Click Reset to Default to restore the built-in meteorology-focused prompt.

All export controls are in the bottom-left map pill, to the right of the inspection tools.

Radar Snapshot (PNG)

Click the camera/export icon to save the current radar canvas as a PNG. If Split View is active, both panels are combined into a single image. A system file-save dialog opens with a timestamp-based default filename.

Radar Loop Recording (WebM)

Click the record button to begin recording. The button turns red while active. StormDeck records each frame of the current animation at the configured frame speed, then saves the full loop as a WebM video (VP9 codec) when you click stop. The file dialog opens automatically on completion.

• Save: Navigate to any location, then click ⭐ in the toolbar. Enter a name and confirm.
• Load: Click 📍 to open the favorites list. Click any entry to immediately jump to that location and reload all data.
• Delete: Click ✕ next to any favorite in the dropdown to remove it.
• Search history: The last 10 searched addresses are stored automatically and appear as autocomplete suggestions when you type in the search bar.

Open the ⚙️ Settings panel from the top-right toolbar.

Radar & Location

Alerts

AI

Advanced (LLM Parameters)