Atmosphere v0.21

Features in full

Capabilities

• A forecast readout for a point -- your position, the map center, a point tapped on the map, or a favorite -- with the fire weather elements a briefing asks for: temperature, humidity, the 20-foot wind and gusts, mixing height, transport wind, wet bulb globe temperature, chance of rain; the next hours as a strip and a table, the next days, sun and moon. The weather service it comes from is a JSON definition file the operator can replace in the field (docs/SOURCES.md); two ship, both key-free.
• Weather stations around you, colored against the Red Flag criteria of their own fire weather zone (the California, Great Basin, Southwest and Northwest annual operating plans are transcribed), with every reading and the criteria behind a tap, favorites, and a list with counted filters. In California, the utilities' stations too (SCE, SDG&E, PG&E, HPWREN, from Cal OES), drawn apart and saying their wind reads higher than a RAWS.
• River gauges colored by flood category, with stage, flow, flood stages and the observed and forecast hydrograph; buoys and coastal stations with their readings graded by sea state, the nearest tide and current predictions, and the coastal or offshore waters forecast for their zone.
• Map layers: radar and modeled wind with a time scrubber; forecast smoke and the EPA's air quality; the SPC fire weather outlook and the WPC excessive rainfall outlook, one day at a time; modeled flooded ground now or for the next five days and the streams running high, with the flows behind a tap (both experimental services, and labeled so); the beach forecast by rip current risk; sea surface temperature; the National Hurricane Center's active storms; avalanche forecast zones by danger; mountain snow stations and the daily snow depth analysis. Every colored area carries its label; every layer says in words what it is not showing.
• Fire weather zones: the NWS zones on the map with their numbers, shaded under a Red Flag Warning or a Fire Weather Watch; the office's Fire Weather Planning Forecast for a zone as written, found by the point being read, by zone number or name, with starred zones.
• SAWTI, the Forest Service's Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index, on the map by level for four days and as a page with the site's gauges, the forecaster's words and the recommended actions; NOAA's 15-minute lightning strike density; California's Public Safety Power Shutoffs from Cal OES, SCE and SDG&E (counties warned, circuits watched, where the power is shut off, customers out and when it is expected back), saying what it does not cover.
• Fire danger: every Predictive Service Area in the lower 48 shaded by its Energy Release Component percentile, observed or forecast, from the Forest Service's national service; tap an area's name for its ERC and Burning Index and its GACC's own ERC chart, full screen to pinch and zoom. Each fire weather zone gives the ERC of the area it is in.
• Fuel moisture samples: every sampling site of the National Fuel Moisture Database in the state under the map, the newest sample's moisture in the pill and colored critical to low on the live fuel or timelag class's own breaks, every fuel sampled there behind a tap; live fuels, dead fuels or both, 30 days to a year back.
• The wind as a heat map: the speed the streaks are drawn from as a colored field under them, in the same bands as the key, with one switch.
• Storms after the fact: every storm report the NWS offices logged in the last three days (tornado, wind, hail, flood, rain, snow, landslide), and the tornado paths survey teams have walked in the last year, each line in its EF rating's color with the survey behind a tap.
• Debris flow: the USGS post-fire assessments, every fire of the last three years marked and, zoomed in, each stream basin filled Low, Moderate or High for a 15-minute burst of rain, beside the river gauges and the rain.
• Earthquakes: the USGS feed worldwide, circles sized by magnitude and colored by age the way USGS draws them, the shaking contours of the largest, and the USGS record behind a tap.
• Storm Reports as a page: the reports and the tornado paths in one list, nationwide, near the pane's point, on the map or by state, newest or closest first, any mix of types; a row flies to it and opens it.
• Rain that fell, for the time picked: the last hour to 30 days, since October 1 or January 1, one day, or the hours before a date and time (the rain before a fire started). The NWS rainfall picture in the service's own colors with a transparency slider; the measured gauges around the map (USGS, airports, NWS observers, county flood control, RAWS) with their totals in the same colors, a gauge that missed part of the time or reads far off its neighbors left off; and the forecast office's own rainfall report as a table, most rain first or closest.
• The forecaster's synopsis on the Forecast page, from the Area Forecast Discussion for the office covering the point, the other sections a tap away.
• Spot forecasts: every open request the National Weather Service has, with the office's forecast, newest or closest first and by type, and help preparing your own request.
• A tap on anything Atmosphere draws opens its page or its details, with no radial menu.
• The forecast asks the weather service picked in Forecast settings (NWS by default) for the point being read. Every map layer asks the operator once, by name, before it touches the network; the dialog names the server and says what is sent. Coordinates that leave the device are rounded to about 100 m. A failed refresh keeps the last good reading and says how old it is.
• Warnings, watches and advisories are deliberately absent, except Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches on the fire weather zones: the companion IPAWS Alerts plugin draws them, on the same map.

Equipment required

Android device supported by ATAK-CIV 5.6, 5.7 or 5.8. Network connectivity to fetch readings; fetched readings stay readable offline with their age shown.

Works with

Any Android device supported by ATAK. No additional or external hardware, no sensors, no peripherals.

Network and security

(This is important for ATO, networking, and other security concerns)

Outbound TCP 443 (HTTPS) only: to the forecast service picked in Forecast settings (api.weather.gov by default, or api.open-meteo.com), and to the services of the map layers the operator has allowed by name. A plaintext http URL in a weather service definition is rejected when it is loaded, not at request time. With no map layer allowed, the forecast is the only call.

Hosts, by what allows them

api.weather.gov forecasts, marine forecast products, spot forecast texts (the weather service and several layers) api.open-meteo.com the other bundled forecast service, if chosen mapservices.weather.noaa.gov NWS map services: fire weather and excessive rainfall outlooks, beach forecast, spot forecast requests, fire weather zones, hurricane maps, snow depth opengeo.ncep.noaa.gov radar mosaics (NWS) geo.weather.gc.ca radar over Canada (Environment Canada) api.rainviewer.com radar everywhere else, the frame list tilecache.rainviewer.com and its tiles (RainViewer's composite) nomads.ncep.noaa.gov model wind, smoke, wave and rain files nowcoast.noaa.gov sea surface temperature maps.water.noaa.gov flooded ground, streams running high api.water.noaa.gov river gauges and their forecasts www.ndbc.noaa.gov buoys and coastal stations api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov tide and current predictions www.nhc.noaa.gov hurricane advisories api.avalanche.org avalanche forecast zones wcc.sc.egov.usda.gov snow stations (NRCS) services.arcgis.com EPA AirNow air quality areas services3.arcgis.com the interagency weather station feed, the Energy Release Component, the RAWS a rainfall report names fsapps.nwcg.gov SAWTI (Forest Service) gacc.nifc.gov Fire Danger charts (the GACCs) www.nfmdb.org fuel moisture samples (NFMD) services.dat.noaa.gov tornado paths (NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit) earthquake.usgs.gov earthquakes, debris flow basins (USGS) waterservices.usgs.gov USGS rain gauges data.rcc-acis.org airports and NWS observers' rain over a run of days (NOAA Regional Climate Centers) geocoding.geo.census.gov address search for a spot request, only when the operator types an address mapdepot.takwerx.org takwerx's relays: Public Safety Power Shutoffs (Cal OES's warned counties and PG&E's areas, SCE's and SDG&E's circuits, as one file); county flood control, RAWS and agency gauges, airports' hourly rain and past radar rain pictures, by state, day and 2-degree square (the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's, kept 45 days)

An operator-supplied weather service definition can name a different host; the dialog that enables it lists the hosts it will contact.

No inbound ports. No listening sockets. No traffic to or from the TAK server; the plugin neither generates nor consumes CoT. Requests carry a User-Agent naming the plugin and its version, which the public services require. No callsign, device identifier or TAK server detail is sent. The device's position leaves it only for the forecast the operator asks for, rounded, and for the station, gauge and buoy layers, which measure from the same point (the device's position when the pane is set to My position), rounded the same way; every other layer sends the map's area.

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