Modernizing PAGASA's operational forecast visualization
The next step for PAGASA's interactive forecast viewer — the same on-demand model guidance, re-architected to render instantly in the browser and unlock fully animated fields.
The modernization, in one paragraph
The interactive forecast viewer recently delivered to PAGASA was a real step beyond fixed maps — it lets forecasters pull model output on demand, pan across the domain, and explore a run rather than only look at it. This proposal builds directly on that foundation. The modernized WRF Dynamic Viewer keeps what makes that approach valuable and changes one thing at its core: instead of routing every view through a server, it serves the model output directly and renders it on the GPU inside the forecaster's browser. The result is immediacy — every product, forecast hour, domain, and zoom responds instantly — together with a class of capability that server-side rendering can't practically deliver: fully animated fields including live wind-particle flow, accumulation windows the forecaster defines on the fly, GPU colormapping with adjustable transparency and units, simulated radar reflectivity, sea-level-pressure isobars, and a switchable satellite basemap. It runs comfortably on PAGASA's own hardware, is theme-aware, and shows Philippine local time alongside UTC. The same guidance forecasters already rely on — delivered as a faster, richer instrument.
What carries forward · what's new
The modernization keeps everything the current viewer does well and adds what a browser-native, GPU-rendered architecture makes possible.
Carried forward from today's viewer
- Interactive, on-demand access to model output — not fixed images
- Pan & zoom over a geographic basemap
- Multiple forecast products across the run
- Runs entirely on PAGASA's own infrastructure
New with the modernization
- Instant response — rendering moves to the GPU in the browser, no server round-trip
- Fully animated fields, including live wind-particle flow
- Forecaster-defined accumulation windows (1 h → 72 h, or custom), computed on the fly
- Live colormap, transparency & unit switching (km/h · m/s · kt)
- Simulated reflectivity, MSLP isobars, satellite basemap, light/dark, PHT + UTC
What it looks like
This clip is running, not a still. Wind speed sits under a live colormap while particles trace flow direction in real time — the kind of moving field that only becomes practical once rendering happens on the GPU in the browser. Speed units switch between km/h, m/s, and knots on demand, and the color range scales for typhoon-strength winds.
A continuous 2 m temperature field with a live colorbar (right) and a time scrubber (below) spanning all 49 forecast frames. Choosing a different product recolors the same underlying grid instantly — nothing is re-rendered on a server. The clock reads Philippine and UTC time together.
Model-derived reflectivity on the standard dBZ scale, with populated place-names for context. Convective cells can be animated through the run — initiation, organization, and decay — at full temporal resolution, then paused on any hour for inspection.
A banded rainfall structure with totals climbing past 260 mm. The accumulation window — 1 h, 3 h … 72 h, or a custom span — is a live control, computed on the fly from cumulative fields, so the forecaster isn't limited to a fixed, pre-chosen set.