08/13/2026
Our local community just had a catastrophic weather event with 100 mph winds and heavy rain, with local mayors declaring a state of emergency for their cities. Trees and power lines are down for miles all around us. Cars are queueing in gas lines at the few stations with power and gas. We have an 80+ year old pin oak tree down in our yard, and there is an equally large tree down directly across the street from us, as well. A leader of a local woodworking group put a call out to the members to bring their chainsaws to help clear out some trees that came down on his property, which can be used for an endless variety of projects.
Custom Visuals has been working on a weather processing system since spring of 2026. The main purpose of the project is to make weather data from the US National Weather Service (NWS), particularly the Global Forecast System (GFS), readily available to everyone for whatever their needs. The GFS data set is an enormous amount of data, weighing in around 650 GB in compressed files (~74 TB uncompressed) per day. I've worked with this data for about 20 years now, mainly for a hedge fund's energy desk, where forecast weather conditions indicate where energy will be flowing. As a simple example, if it's currently 60 degrees in Valparaiso, Indiana (where I live), but will be 90 degrees in 2 days, the required gas, oil and electricity to cool homes, offices, etc., will need to be transferred via pipelines and transmission lines just prior to the needed cooling. This is a typical example that happens in countries every day to keep us comfortable and power our lives.
So far, we have the data downloaders and database loaders working. The order forms for the 90+ parameters of information, and their hundreds of levels, from 1 meter below the surface to 1 mb of pressure (about 6 miles above the surface), are next on the list. Together there are over 1,000 form selections. And selecting the region(s) you want, from a neighborhood to a nation will be part of the process, as well.
Following that, we need to get the data to you, which means you decide what format you want it, from a Google Earth map overlay, to a spreadsheet, and several other options.
Here's a quick idea of a Google Earth map overlay for Alaska I did for an earlier iteration of this project. Stick around as development continues.
