Configure weather, alerts, radar, and lightning proximity zones.
StationCommand combines National Weather Service conditions/alerts/radar with optional B.3.2.0 Xweather/Vaisala lightning detection and operational proximity alerting.
Weather Forecast Location
Administration → WeatherBy default, StationCommand uses the center of all configured stations. If that cannot be calculated, it uses the first valid station; with one station, it uses that station. Administrators can click/drag the map, enter latitude/longitude, use a ZIP code, or return to the automatic station center.
National Weather Service status
Use Refresh Weather Now to force a current refresh. Test Tornado Warning Display creates an internal TEST alert; Clear Test Alert removes it. StationCommand test alerts never send anything to the National Weather Service.
Specific NWS alerts link to the appropriate human-readable weather.gov Watches, Warnings & Advisories page when available.
Public Weather & Active Alerts
The public route /weather shows current conditions, current NOAA/NWS radar, every active NWS alert, alert polygons where supplied, and a View NWS Alert action. It intentionally does not expose the forecast-card/daypart arrays on that endpoint.
If public radar fails, B.3 keeps valid current conditions and active alerts on screen instead of replacing everything with a generic weather-unavailable message.
Lightning Detection
Administration → Weather → Lightning DetectionB.3.2.0 adds optional Xweather / Vaisala lightning detection. It is disabled by default. Administrators can configure the provider credentials, pulse filter, monitoring radius, Critical/Warning/Advisory radii, strike display history, all-clear delay, polling intervals, and map visibility.
Suggested starting configuration
The following is a reasonable technical starting point, not a department lightning-safety policy:
| Setting | Starting point |
|---|---|
| Pulse types | Cloud-to-ground + intracloud |
| Monitoring radius | 50 miles |
| Critical / Warning / Advisory | 5 / 10 / 20 miles |
| Show strikes from | Last 15 minutes |
| All-clear delay | 15 minutes |
| Storm / quiet refresh | 30 seconds / 30 minutes |
| Public Weather lightning | Off initially |
Where lightning can appear
Enable visibility independently on Current Radar/Weather, Incident, EOC, and Public Weather maps. Recent strike markers fade continuously with age. StationCommand can also show proximity rings, closest-strike distance/direction/time, five-minute strike count, and an expected all-clear time.
A Critical, Warning, or Advisory lightning state can force the Weather slide into the station-display rotation.
Save and test
Click Save Lightning Settings, then Test Xweather Connection. A successful provider test can legitimately return zero strikes. The test is verifying authentication/connectivity and the configured weather point, not requiring active lightning nearby.
How adaptive polling works
All displays share one server-side lightning cache. StationCommand uses the storm interval when recent lightning is present or NWS/current weather indicates thunderstorm/tornado risk. Otherwise it uses the quiet interval. This avoids one provider request per TV.
Weather/lightning acceptance test
- Verify the department weather point.
- Refresh NWS weather and confirm conditions/alerts.
- Test Tornado Warning Display and then clear the test.
- If lightning is enabled, save settings and pass Test Xweather Connection.
- Verify configured lightning rings/markers on each enabled private map when test/live data is available.
- Confirm public lightning remains off unless explicitly approved.
- Open /weather and verify public conditions, active alerts, radar, and approved lightning behavior.