If you have a few minutes to spend looking at some nice graphics, browse on over to earth.
earth is a browser-based visualization of global weather conditions created by Cameron Beccario. Beccario says that "earth is a personal project I've used to learn javascript and browser programming, and is based on the earlier Tokyo Wind Map project."
The main components of the project are:
- a script to download and process Global Forecast System (GFS) model output in GRIB2 format from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, NOAA / National Weather Service
- a GRIB2 to JSON converter (see the grib2json project)
- scripts to push site files to Amazon S3 for static hosting
- a browser app that interpolates the data and renders an animated wind map.
In addition to a variety of Javascript libraries, earth uses Unidata's THREDDS GRIB decoder.
Click on the word "earth" in the lower left corner of the display for controls and information.
