Weather Kiosk v2

A full-screen weather dashboard for a Windows PC / Raspberry Pi kiosk. Search any city and the whole display — forecast, map, radar, alerts — recenters on it. The map fills the window (full-bleed) and two panels float on top as glass overlays:

• Left card — current conditions for the selected location: big temperature + live condition icon, a compact hourly temperature strip, three info tiles (sun arc · humidity · wind), and an upcoming-days outlook.
• Map (full window) — a dark basemap with live RainViewer radar, NHC tropical disturbances / storm tracks (all basins: Atlantic + E/Central Pacific), and real-time Blitzortung lightning.
• Alert ticker — a strip floating bottom-right that stays quiet (just a clock) until there are active NWS warnings or NHC tropical text, then scrolls them in a severity colour.

The whole look (left card, tiles, ticker, map surround) switches automatically between day / night / rain palettes chosen from the current weather.

Quick start

pip install -r requirements.txt
python run.py

No API keys required. Weather comes from Open-Meteo and the basemap from CARTO — both free and keyless. Just install and run.

(Optional) For satellite imagery instead of the dark vector base, set BASEMAP_SOURCE = "mapbox_sat" in weather_kiosk/config.py and add a Mapbox token: copy weather_kiosk/secrets_local.example.py to weather_kiosk/secrets_local.py and paste your pk. token (or set the MAPBOX_TOKEN env var). secrets_local.py is git-ignored.

Controls

Key	Action
Ctrl+K / Ctrl+F	Open city search — type a place, Enter to search, ↑↓ + Enter to pick
Ctrl+↑ / Ctrl+↓	Zoom the map in / out (recenters on the current location)
Esc	Close the search overlay, or quit
F / F11	Toggle fullscreen
L	Toggle the 16:9 aspect lock
M	Cycle the theme (auto → day → night → rain)

The last location and zoom are saved to user_settings.json (git-ignored) and restored on the next launch. In windowed mode, drag the window edge to resize (it stays 16:9).

CLI flags: --fullscreen, --no-nhc, --no-radar, --no-lightning, --no-alerts. (On a Raspberry Pi the app auto-detects and starts fullscreen.)

Project layout

run.py                  Launcher (writes crash_log.txt on startup failure)
weather_kiosk/          Application package
├── __main__.py         Entry point; starts Qt + the 6 data daemon threads
├── config.py           Tunables: default location, map source, zoom, toggles, timing, palettes
├── secrets_local.py    Optional Mapbox token (git-ignored; see secrets_local.example.py)
├── geo.py              Web Mercator projection — the shared transform every layer uses
├── state.py            Thread-safe shared state + Qt signals (active location, epoch)
├── settings.py         Persist/restore the last location + zoom (user_settings.json)
├── fonts.py            Registers the bundled Inter Display font (SIL OFL) with Qt
├── data/               Background data feeds (one daemon thread each)
│   ├── basemap.py      CARTO Dark Matter (or Mapbox/ESRI) -> stitched/cached basemap
│   ├── radar.py        RainViewer tiles -> stitched/cropped radar frames
│   ├── nhc.py          NHC ArcGIS tropical outlook areas / storms / tracks (all basins)
│   ├── weather.py      Open-Meteo (current + hourly + daily; native WMO codes)
│   ├── geocode.py      Open-Meteo city search (keyless) for the search overlay
│   ├── lightning.py    Blitzortung WebSocket strike feed
│   ├── alerts.py       NWS active alerts + NHC tropical text (AT/EP/CP) for the ticker
│   └── tiles.py        Shared Web Mercator tile fetch + stitch + crop
└── ui/                 Qt widgets (all QPainter — no matplotlib)
    ├── main_window.py  Full-bleed _Stage: map fills the window, card + ticker float on top
    ├── map_panel.py    Layered Qt map: basemap + radar + NHC + lightning + marker
    ├── search_overlay.py   City-search panel (Ctrl+K)
    ├── conditions_panel.py Current-conditions card (temp, icon, stat line)
    ├── hourly_chart.py     Compact hourly temperature strip
    ├── info_tiles.py       Sun-arc / humidity / wind tiles
    ├── forecast.py         Upcoming-days outlook rows
    ├── alert_ticker.py     Quiet/active alert marquee
    ├── theme.py            day / night / rain palettes (single source of truth)
    ├── glass.py            Cross-platform frosted-glass panel treatment
    └── rounded.py          Shared rounded-card mask helper
assets/                 Runtime assets the app loads (weather icons, NHC symbols, font)
cache/                  Generated basemap PNGs (git-ignored; re-fetched)
docs/PROJECT_NOTES.md   How this build came to be + architecture decisions

Configuration

Tunables live in weather_kiosk/config.py:

• Default location: WX_LAT, WX_LON, WX_CITY (where the kiosk opens before any search; overridden by a saved user_settings.json)
• Basemap: BASEMAP_SOURCE ("carto_dark" · "mapbox_sat" · "esri_dark")
• Map zoom: MAP_SPAN_DEG (degrees across the map when you search a place), MAP_SPAN_MIN / MAP_SPAN_MAX (Ctrl+↑/↓ zoom limits)
• Feature toggles: ENABLE_NHC_TRACKER, ENABLE_RADAR, ENABLE_LIGHTNING, ENABLE_ALERTS, ENABLE_HOME_MARKER
• Radar: RADAR_ZOOM, RADAR_ALPHA, RADAR_FRAME_DWELL, RADAR_ANIM_FRAMES
• Lightning feel: LIGHTNING_HOLD_SECS (full-brightness hold) then LIGHTNING_FADE_SECS (fade-out)
• Glass / layout: GLASS_*, SPLIT_LEFT_FRAC, STAGE_MARGIN, TICKER_H_FRAC

How the map works (one line)

Every layer is Web Mercator and goes through the single transform in geo.py, so the basemap, radar tiles, NHC overlays, and lightning all line up with zero reprojection — composited by Qt's QPainter. See docs/PROJECT_NOTES.md.

Data sources & attribution

• Weather & geocoding: Open-Meteo (CC-BY 4.0)
• Basemap: CARTO Dark Matter — © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO (or Mapbox / Esri if selected)
• Radar: RainViewer · Lightning: Blitzortung.org · Tropical: NOAA/NHC · Alerts: NWS / api.weather.gov
• UI font: Inter Display by Rasmus Andersson (SIL Open Font License; see assets/fonts/Inter-LICENSE.txt)

License

This project's own code is released under the MIT License — see LICENSE. Bundled third-party assets retain their own upstream licenses (e.g. Inter under the SIL OFL, the weather icon set under its own terms); the MIT license covers this project's source, not those assets.