NexView is an open-source software designed to display real-time NEXRAD Level 2 weather radar data. It streams live radar information directly from NOAA's public AWS S3 bucket, offering a powerful tool for monitoring severe weather conditions.
Key Features:
Real-Time Radar Data: Downloads and displays up-to-date NEXRAD Level 2 data with no API key requirements.
Dual-Pol Products Support: Renders all available dual-polarization products, including REF, VEL, ZDR, and more.
Quad View Display: Shows four radar products simultaneously for comprehensive analysis.
Interactive Mapping: Uses OpenStreetMap overlays with pan/zoom functionality to explore radar coverage areas.
Fast Performance: Utilizes parallel processing and GPU acceleration for smooth rendering of radar data.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for weather enthusiasts, meteorologists, and emergency responders who need precise, real-time radar information. NexView provides a cost-effective, open-source solution for monitoring severe weather conditions and improving situational awareness.
NexView is available as a self-contained binary with no runtime dependencies and can be installed via winget.
README
NexView
Open-source NEXRAD Level 2 weather radar viewer written in Rust. Downloads real-time radar data directly from AWS and renders it with map overlays.
Features
Real-time NEXRAD data — streams directly from NOAA's public AWS S3 bucket (no API key needed)
All dual-pol products — REF, VEL, SW, ZDR, CC, KDP
Quad view — display 4 products simultaneously
Interactive map — OpenStreetMap tiles with Web Mercator projection, pan/zoom
130+ radar sites — click to switch, or search by name/state
Keyboard shortcuts — arrow keys for tilt/product cycling, Q for quad toggle
Persistent settings — save your default station, zoom level, and view preferences
Performance
On a typical machine:
Download: ~700ms (6MB file from S3)
Parse: ~120ms (parallel bzip2 decompression)
Render: ~60ms (4 products in quad view)
Keyboard Shortcuts
Key
Action
Up/Down
Tilt up/down (elevation sweeps)
Left/Right
Cycle through products
Q
Toggle quad view
Building
cargo build --release
The binary is fully self-contained with no runtime dependencies.
How It Works
NexView parses NEXRAD Level 2 Archive II files (ICD 2620010H) directly from binary. The parser handles:
Volume header extraction
Message Type 31 (Digital Radar Data) parsing
Data moment block decoding with proper scale/offset
bzip2 block decompression (parallelized across CPU cores)
Radar data is rendered using a fast line-drawing algorithm that traces radial lines across each gate's azimuth span, avoiding expensive per-pixel trigonometry.
Data Source
All radar data comes from NOAA's public NEXRAD Level 2 archive on AWS S3 (unidata-nexrad-level2 bucket). No authentication or API keys required.