STAC

In the previous post, 雪：更快速更流畅的气象数据动画 (Chinese), I packed forecast variables into a single-file container, .xue, which the browser read frame by frame through its index. For two variables of one GFS run, per-frame precolored PMTiles (zoom 0–4) came to 3,205.87 MB, the source GRIB2 was 137.73 MB, and .xue brought it down to about 65 MB. The size problem was solved. The problem with a custom container is that only its own decoder can read it. ...

Picking up where I left off: earlier this year I built a project called sitian, which analyzes weather processes from a sequence of synoptic charts over a period of time. Using it myself and backtesting it against historical weather, I found that combined analysis across multiple data sources did not work well. Take one example: a region is about to be affected by a typhoon, and the relevant data includes: Radiosonde soundings around the typhoon’s track Model forecast data Satellite observations Radar data Surface observations as supporting context The previous setup made it awkward to handle fairly complex combinations of input data. It also meant maintaining and integrating several data sources. So the sitian project has, in practice, stopped running. ...