Vortex Radar 🌪️

Browser-based weather radar and alerts. Pulls live data from the NWS and other public sources: radar, warnings, surface obs, lightning, and more.

Project rename: This project was renamed from StormTrack Pro to Vortex Radar.

🌐 Website

You can view the live version here: vortexradar.snapsera.com

🖼️ Showcase

✨ Features

• NEXRAD radar — Level 2 & Level 3 from any US NEXRAD site. Reflectivity, velocity (with dealiasing), and a bunch of other products. National composite, looping, and a data inspector.
• 24/7 Live Mode — Autonomous weather broadcast mode that rotates between SPC outlooks, active severe warnings, CONUS radar, local spotlight segments, storm reports, and recent earthquakes.
• Live commentary + soundtrack — Typewriter-style commentary with alert-first callouts, plus built-in background music controls for stream-style viewing.
• National MRMS radar loop — CONUS base reflectivity from NOAA nowCOAST with multi-frame playback and smooth endpoint dwell for cleaner animation.
• Alerts — Warnings, watches, advisories drawn on the map with polygons and full text. SPC watches, MDs, outlooks. Ticker along the bottom, plus audible/voice notifications.
• Lightning — Real-time strike plotting.
• METARs — Station models from ASOS/AWOS sites.
• Surface fronts — Frontal boundaries and pressure systems.
• Hurricanes — NHC tracks and forecast cones.
• SPC — Outlooks, watches, mesoscale discussions.
• Weather stations — Upper-air soundings and station info.
• Radio — NWR and scanner streams.
• Drawing — Freehand annotation on the map.
• Screenshots — Save any region of the map.
• 7-Day Forecast — City/state/zip, current conditions, hourly out to 72h, day-by-day text forecasts.

🗺️ Roadmap

Current App Progress

• Core platform maturity — 90% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
• Live weather coverage — 85% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
• UI/UX polish — 70% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
• Desktop packaging + release flow — 65% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
• Performance and optimization pass — 60% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜

Feature Completion

• NEXRAD radar + national loop — 100% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
• Alerts + polygons + ticker/voice — 90% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
• 24/7 Live Mode engine — 80% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
• Forecast experience (hourly + 7-day) — 75% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
• Lightning/METAR/fronts/SPC overlays — 80% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
• Hurricanes and tropical tools — 70% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
• Desktop app + updater reliability — 65% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜

Future Plans (In Progress / Planned)

• Multi-region camera expansion + smarter rotation — 60% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
• Live Mode segment customization controls — 50% 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
• Map performance tuning for low-end GPUs — 40% 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
• Mobile responsiveness improvements — 30% 🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
• Better onboarding/help and discoverability — 30% 🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
• Testing/QA automation coverage — 20% 🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜

🗂️ Project layout

app/                Source, organized by feature
  alerts/           Alert fetching, parsing, rendering, polygons
  core/             App shell, map, menus, popups, clock, entry point
  devtools/         Dev/testing tools
  draw/             Drawing/annotation
  forecast/         7-day forecast modal
  hurricanes/       Tropical cyclone tracks
  lightning/        Lightning data
  metars/           METAR parsing and station models
  radar/            NEXRAD decoding, plotting, colormaps, looping, inspector
  radio/            NWR / scanner streams
  screenshot/       Map capture
  spc/              SPC outlooks, watches, MDs
  surface_fronts/   Fronts overlay
  timezones/        Timezone display
  ui/               Shared UI (ticker, audible alerts, voice, fullscreen)
  weather_station/  Station info, upper-air data
data/               Static data and palettes
dist/               Build output
images/             Icons and SVGs
lib/                Vendored libs (bzip2)
scripts/            Build scripts
styles/             CSS source (concatenated at build)
tools/              Changelog, bundle-size utils

🧰 Tech

• Mapbox GL JS for the map
• Browserify + brfs for bundling
• WebGL with custom GLSL shaders for radar rendering
• All radar decoding happens client-side — bzip2 decompression, NEXRAD message parsing, the whole thing
• Express serves the app (server.js, port 3000)

🚀 Getting started

npm install
npm run build

npm run build concats CSS, bundles JS with Browserify, and minifies with UglifyJS.

npm run start          # Express server on port 3000
npm run dev            # build + start

Then open http://localhost:3000.

💻 Desktop app (super simple)

This project can build and publish a Windows desktop app with auto-updates through GitHub Releases.

✅ One-time setup

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

1. Create a GitHub Personal Access Token (classic repo scope is easiest), then save it once on Windows:

setx GH_TOKEN "YOUR_GITHUB_TOKEN"

1. Restart Cursor/terminal after running setx.

🏗️ Build desktop app locally (no publish)

npm run desktop:dist

Output goes to:

• release-build/win-unpacked/ (unpacked app)
• release-build/Vortex Radar Setup.exe (installer)

📦 Publish a release to GitHub (auto-update)

Run this when you want users to get an update:

npm run desktop:publish

What it does automatically:

• Bumps patch version (1.0.x -> 1.0.x+1)
• Builds web assets
• Builds desktop installer
• Uploads release artifacts to GitHub (snapsera/vortexradar)

🔎 Optional check before publish

npm run desktop:preflight

This checks token + repo permissions and also bumps patch version.

🧪 Quick release checklist

1. Make your code changes
2. Run npm run desktop:publish
3. Verify new release appears on GitHub
4. Open installed app and confirm update prompt appears

🛠️ Common issues

• "GitHub Personal Access Token is not set"
  • Reopen terminal/Cursor after setx
  • Verify token exists with:
    • echo $env:GH_TOKEN (PowerShell)
• EPERM ... bundle.js build error
  • Close running app/build processes
  • Delete stale temp files:
    • Remove-Item .\dist\bundle.js.tmp-browserify-* -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
  • Re-run publish
• Security reminder 🔐
  • Never paste your token in chat/screenshots/terminal logs
  • If exposed, revoke and create a new token immediately

🙌 Credits

Built on top of AtticRadar by SteepAtticStairs. A lot of the core architecture, NEXRAD decoding, and WebGL rendering here started from or was heavily inspired by that project. Go check it out.

📄 License

Not currently published under an open-source license. All rights reserved.