CONUS • LATEST •
Composite reflectivity
You are in SparkGen
WXJ58
144.550 mHz | 2 listeners
Severe Thunderstorm Warning
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Backend Information
The info appears in the bottom left corner and reveals what the application is doing.
Current Location
Show your current location on the radar map. Your location info does not leave your device.
Settings Database
Download your settings as a backup, or upload an existing backup.
Restore Settings
Reset all settings to their defaults, including custom alert colors.
Map Style
Maps provided by
SPC Outlook
Show or hide the SPC Day 1 Categorical Outlook outline.
Radar opacity
A higher opacity value means a less transparent radar.
Alert Colors
Make the radar yours by defining your own alert polygon colors. If there is more than one color option, the alert will flash between the two colors.
Extreme Wind Warning
Tornado Emergency
PDS Tornado Warning
Tornado Warning
PDS Severe Tstorm Warning
Severe Tstorm Warning
Special Weather Statement
Flash Flood Emergency
Flash Flood Warning
Special Marine Warning
Flood Warning
Flood Advisory
SPC Watches
Show or hide severe thunderstorm and tornado watches issued by the SPC.
Watch Colors
As you can change alert colors, you can also change the colors of SPC watches.
Tornado Watch
Severe Tstorm Watch
Lightning
Choose at what zoom lightning strikes appear on the map. Lightning strikes are accumulated over the last 60 minutes.
Note: At the moment, the lightning data source has stopped running. Spark Radar is in the process of partering with a new data source.
Storm Centers
Turns storm centers on or off.
Weather Radios
Turn the weather radio listener on or off. Also shows or hides radio markers on the map.
Streaming settings coming soon!
👋 Hi there!
Thanks for checking out my radar. Spark Radar was a project I started in 2024 because I love tracking the weather and programming. I made the entire thing open source because finding the radar data was really hard to do. You can check out the source code in this repo.
How does it work?
The principle of Spark Radar is actually very simple. I found a tile server used by the NWS's radar. After passing it a bounding box and station, it returns an image which simply gets placed on the map!
Credits
The following are the services and sources which the radar gets data from:
Radar Images: NOAA's OPENGEO Server
Radar Info and Stations: NWS API
Alerts: NWS API
Watches: The IEM WW Archive
SPC Outlooks: NWS SPC GeoJSON
Search Results: Geocode
Weather Radios: GWES WeatherRadio
Honorable Mentions
The following people have helped make the radar or have helped me with finding data:
Wxtership (Owner of Xtreme Weather Discord) and his radar
SteepAtticStairs (Creator of AtticRadar)
Dan Paulat (Creator of SupercellWX)
Version:v2.0 BETA (v1.1)
Date: Apr 1, 2025
Radar Legend Information
National (CONUS) Products
Composite Refletctivity (cref): Max reflectivity value found at that point among all radar tilts.
Base Refletctivity (bref): Reflectivity value at base tilt (0.5deg). This is your common radar.
Echo Tops (neet_v18): Estimated top of a storm, where the precipitation stops in the atmosphere. Can indicate stronger convection.
Precipitation Type (pcpn_typ): Digital estimation of falling precipitation.
WS: Warm Stratiform rain; S: Snow; C: Convective rain; H: Hail; CS: Cool Stratiform rain; ST: Tropical/Stratiform rain mix; CT: Tropical/Convective rain mix
Station (WSR-88D) Products
Base Refletctivity: Reflectivity value at base tilt (0.5deg). This is your common radar.
Base Velocity: Shows the motion and speed of particles; indicates wind speed and direction. Can identify a tornado.
Digital Hydrometer Classification: Digital estimation of falling precipitation.
BI: Biological; GC: Clutter; IC: Ice Crystals; DS: Dry Snow; WS: Wet Snow; RA: Rain; HR: Heavy Rain; BD: Big Drops; GR: Graupel; HA: Hail-Rain; UK: Unknown
Rainfall Accumulation: Digital estimation of how much rain has fallen over the past hour or from a storm system.
More info: weather.gov/radarfaq
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Welcome to SparkGen!
SparkGen is a powerful tool to issue weather alerts on your own. It's completely free, and performs many of the same jobs as AWIPS WarnGen.
Click next to run through the tutorial, or skip if you want to explore on your own.
(1/4) Creating watches
Watches are extremely easy to create. Simply click a county and it will be included.
Click a county again and it will be excluded.
(2/4) Creating warnings
To create a warning, click the polygon button on the toolbar. Click to place a vertex. After three vertices are on the map, a polygon will appear.
You can click any vertex to delete it, or drag a vertex to move it.
When you are finished, click the polygon button again to lock it.
(3/4) Naming alerts and advanced features
Click the edit button to change alert text.
Leave any box blank to hide the text.
Tip: Click the trash can in the toolbar to clear any drawn polygons and reset all counties.
(4/4) Issuing alerts
Click the green camera button to enter photo mode. You can then screenshot your alert map.
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