ws4kp-linhanced

ws4kp-linhanced is a Linux-focused fork of netbymatt/ws4kp by markmental.

About

This fork keeps the classic WeatherStar-style experience and stable base architecture from the original ws4kp project, while selectively integrating international weather support and other practical improvements. It is not intended to be a perfect hardware emulation of the WeatherStar 4000. If you want a more exact recreation of the original hardware behavior, see the WS4000 Simulator.

This fork also explicitly adopts Slackware Linux weatherstar4k branding as part of its mission. The goal is not broad platform neutrality. The goal is a lean, self-hostable, Linux-oriented weatherstar fork with a strong visual identity and a codebase that stays practical to maintain.

About This Fork

This project is based on:

• netbymatt/ws4kp for the core WeatherStar implementation and the more stable upstream foundation.
• mwood77/ws4kp-international for the Open-Meteo international weather direction and some global map ideas.

This fork intentionally diverges from ws4kp-international. That project proved out the international weather concept, but this fork aims to keep a narrower scope and avoid the feature creep that can make ongoing work harder. The original ws4kp codebase provided a better base for that approach, so this fork builds from there and pulls in only the parts that fit.

Current Direction

This fork is focused on:

• preserving the classic WeatherStar feel while staying maintainable
• Linux-first identity and presentation
• Open-Meteo-based international weather support for the core forecast screens
• global radar and global regional observations on the newer map stack
• pragmatic feature additions instead of broad platform expansion

Themes

ws4kp-linhanced supports live asset theme swapping from the main page. Themes are discovered automatically from the themes/ directory and can be changed from the Theme selector under the More information link without reloading the page.

Current themes include:

• Default: the standard WeatherStar 4000+ asset set.
• oceanview: based on the Oceanview Weather Channel presentation from the Eventide Media Center analog horror series.
• slackware: based on the Oceanview theme, but with the Slackware Linux badge/logo treatment.

At the moment, theming covers the major background assets and the corner logo. Additional theme asset overrides can be added by placing matching files in themes/<theme-name>/.

What's your motivation

Nostalgia, Linux affinity, and an interest in keeping a practical retro weather display alive without turning it into a sprawling platform.

Included technology

This fork still keeps the original project's straightforward architecture and relatively low dependency surface so it stays approachable to modify.

From a learning standpoint, this codebase makes use of a lot of different methods and technologies common on the internet including:

• The Open-Meteo API for core forecast data.
• NOAA APIs and products where legacy US-only displays still require them.
• ES 6 functionality
  • Arrow functions
  • Promises
  • Async/await and parallel loading of forecast resources
  • Classes and extensions
  • Javascript modules
• Separation between API code and user interface code
• Use of a modern date parsing library luxon
• Server-side proxy caching plus browser/static asset caching
• fastfetch for the Linux-oriented Server Observations display
• Very straight-forward hand written HTML
• Build system integration (Gulp, Webpack) to reduce the number of scripts that need to be loaded
• Hand written CSS made easier to mange with SASS
• A linting library to keep code style consistent

Quick Start

Ensure you have Node installed.

git clone <your fork url here>
cd ws4kp-linhanced
npm install
npm start

Open your browser and navigate to https://localhost:8080

Does ws4kp-linhanced work outside of the USA?

Yes for the core forecast screens, and more than that.

The main weather flow now uses Open-Meteo, so search, current conditions, hourly, local forecast, extended forecast, almanac, travel forecast, radar, and regional observations all work internationally.

Some legacy displays still rely on NOAA's Weather API and remain available only for United States locations for now:

• Hazards
• SPC Outlook

This fork no longer treats ws4kp-international as a drop-in upstream. Instead, it selectively incorporates the Open-Meteo international weather work while keeping a leaner feature set and a more stable base.

Earlier international work on this idea was explored in a fork created by @mwood77:

• ws4kp-international

Deployment Modes

ws4kp-linhanced supports two deployment modes:

Server Deployment (Recommended)

• Includes Node.js server with caching proxy for better performance (especially when running on a local server for multiple clients)
• Server-side request deduplication and caching
• Weather API observability and logging
• Used by: npm start, DIST=1 npm start, and Dockerfile.server

Static Deployment

• Pure client-side deployment using nginx to serve static files
• All API requests are made directly from each browser to the weather services
• Browser-based caching
• Used by: static file hosting and default Dockerfile

Other methods to run ws4kp-linhanced

Development Mode (individual JS files, easier debugging)

npm start

Development Mode without proxy caching

STATIC=1 npm start

Production Mode (minified/concatenated JS, faster loading)

npm run build
DIST=1 npm start

Production Mode without proxy caching (simulates static Docker deployment)

npm run build
STATIC=1 DIST=1 npm start

For all modes, access ws4kp-linhanced by going to: http://localhost:8080/

Key Differences

Development Mode (npm start):

• Uses individual JavaScript module files served directly
• Easier debugging with source maps and readable code
• Slower initial load (many HTTP requests for individual files)
• Live file watching and faster development iteration

Production Mode (DIST=1 npm start):

• Uses minified and concatenated JavaScript bundles
• Faster initial load (fewer HTTP requests, smaller file sizes)
• Optimized for performance with multiple clients
• Requires npm run build to generate optimized files

Docker Deployments

To run via Docker using a "static deployment" where everything happens in the browser (no server component, like STATIC=1):

docker run -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/netbymatt/ws4kp

To run via Docker using a "server deployment" with a caching proxy server for multi-client performance and enhanced observability (like npm run build; DIST=1 npm start):

docker build -f Dockerfile.server -t ws4kp-server .
docker run -p 8080:8080 ws4kp-server

To run via Docker Compose (shown here in static deployment mode):

---
services:
  ws4kp:
    image: ghcr.io/netbymatt/ws4kp
    container_name: ws4kp
    environment:
      # Each argument in the permalink URL can become an environment variable on the Docker host by adding WSQS_
      # Following the "Sharing a Permalink" example below, here are a few environment variables defined. Visit that section for a
      # more complete list of configuration options.
      - WSQS_latLonQuery=Orlando International Airport Orlando FL USA
      - WSQS_hazards_checkbox=false
      - WSQS_current_weather_checkbox=true
    ports:
      - 8080:8080 # change the first 8080 to meet your local network needs
    restart: unless-stopped

Serving a static app

There are several ways to deploy WeatherStar as a static app that runs entirely in the browser:

Manual static hosting (Apache, nginx, CDN, etc.): Build static distribution files for upload to any web server:

npm run build

The resulting files in /dist can be uploaded to any web server; no server-side scripting is required.

Docker static deployment: The default Docker image uses nginx to serve pre-built static files:

docker run -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/netbymatt/ws4kp

Node.js in static mode: Use the Node.js server as a static file host without the caching proxy:

STATIC=1 npm start          # Use Express to serve development files
STATIC=1 DIST=1 npm start   # Use Express to serve (minimized) production files

What's different

This fork has diverged significantly from upstream in a few important ways:

• Core weather and forecast screens now use Open-Meteo instead of being tied entirely to weather.gov.
• Travel Forecast has been rebuilt on region buckets with a global fallback instead of remaining a US-only NOAA-driven screen.
• Local Radar now uses global RainViewer radar imagery on top of a cached world basemap instead of the older US-only radar path.
• Regional Forecast has been temporarily replaced by a global Regional Observations map display using nearby city observations on the new map stack.
• Latest Observations has been removed.
• Some NOAA-based displays are still retained where there is no equivalent replacement yet, especially Hazards and SPC Outlook.
• This fork explicitly embraces Linux and Slackware-flavored weatherstar4k branding instead of aiming for broad neutral presentation.

Sharing a permalink (bookmarking)

Selected displays, the forecast city and widescreen setting are sticky from one session to the next. However if you would like to share your exact configuration or bookmark it, click the "Copy Permalink" (or get "Get Permalink") near the bottom of the page. A URL will be copied to your clipboard with all of you selected displays and location (or copy it from the page if your browser doesn't support clipboard transfers directly). You can then share this link or add it to your bookmarks.

Your permalink will be very long. Here is an example for the Orlando International Airport:

https://weatherstar.netbymatt.com/?hazards-checkbox=false&current-weather-checkbox=true&latest-observations-checkbox=true&hourly-checkbox=false&hourly-graph-checkbox=true&travel-checkbox=false&regional-forecast-checkbox=true&local-forecast-checkbox=true&extended-forecast-checkbox=true&almanac-checkbox=false&spc-outlook-checkbox=true&radar-checkbox=true&settings-wide-checkbox=false&settings-kiosk-checkbox=false&settings-scanLines-checkbox=false&settings-speed-select=1.00&settings-units-select=us&latLonQuery=Orlando+International+Airport%2C+Orlando%2C+FL%2C+USA&latLon=%7B%22lat%22%3A28.431%2C%22lon%22%3A-81.3076%7D

You can also build your own permalink. Any omitted settings will be filled with defaults. Here are a few examples:

https://weatherstar.netbymatt.com/?latLonQuery=Orlando+International+Airport
https://weatherstar.netbymatt.com/?kiosk=true
https://weatherstar.netbymatt.com/?settings-units-select=metric

Kiosk mode

Kiosk mode can be activated by a checkbox on the page. This will start Weatherstar in a fullscreen-like view without the play/volume/etc toolbar and scaled to fill the entire space. This does not activate the browser's fullscreen or kiosk mode. Those can only be activated by user interaction or by launching the browser with specific parameters such as --start-fullscreen or --kiosk.

When using kiosk mode (via the checkbox), there will be no way to exit the fullscreen-like view of weatherstar. Reloading the page should remove the kiosk checkbox and return you to the normal view. This is deliberate as a browser's kiosk mode it intended not to be exited or significantly modified. A separate full-screen icon is available in the tool bar to go full-screen on a laptop or mobile browser.

It's also possible to enter kiosk mode using a permalink. First generate a Permalink, then to the end of it add &kiosk=true. Opening this link will load all of the selected displays included in the Permalink, enter kiosk mode immediately upon loading and start playing the forecast.

Default query string parameters (environment variables)

When serving this via the built-in Express server, it's possible to define environment variables that direct the user to a default set of parameters (like the Permalink above). If a user requests the root page at http://localhost:8080/ the query string provided by environment variables will be appended to the url thus providing a default configuration.

Environment variables can be added to the command line as usual, or via a .env file which is parsed with dotenv. Both methods have the same effect.

Environment variables that are to be added to the default query string are prefixed with WSQS_ and then use the same key/value pairs generated by the Permalink above, with the - (dash) character replaced by an _ (underscore). For example, if you wanted to turn the travel forecast on, you would find travel-checkbox=true in the permalink, its matching environment variable becomes WSQS_travel_checkbox=true.

When using the Docker container, these environment variables are read on container start-up to generate the static redirect HTML.

Settings

Speed: Controls the playback speed multiplier of the displays, from "Very Fast" (1.5x) to "Very Slow" (0.5x) with "Normal" being 1x

Widescreen: Stretches the background to 16:9 to avoid "pillarboxing" on modern displays

Kiosk: Immediately activates kiosk mode, which hides all settings. Exit by refreshing the page or using Ctrl-K. (Kiosk mode is similar to clicking the "Fullscreen" icon, but scales to the current browser viewport instead of activating the browser's actual "Fullscreen" mode.)

Sticky Kiosk: When enabled, stores the kiosk mode preference in local storage so the page automatically enters kiosk mode (maximizing the size of the main weather display without any settings) on subsequent visits. This feature is designed primarily for iPhone and iPad users who want to create a Home Screen app experience, since Mobile Safari doesn't support PWA installation via manifest.json or the Fullscreen API:

For iOS/iPadOS (Mobile Safari):

1. Tap the Share icon and choose Add to Home Screen
2. Adjust the name as desired and tap Add
3. Launch the newly-created Home Screen shortcut
4. Configure all settings
5. Tap to enable Sticky Kiosk
6. Make sure everything is configured exactly like you want it!
7. Tap Kiosk

For Android and Desktop browsers: The included manifest.json file enables PWA (Progressive Web App) installation. To get the best app-like experience:

1. Configure all your settings first (ignore the "Kiosk" and "Sticky Kiosk" settings)
2. Create a permalink using the "Copy Permalink" feature and manually add &kiosk=true to the end
3. Open the edited permalink URL in your browser
4. Look for browser prompts to "Install" or "Add to Home Screen" from the kiosk-enabled URL
5. The PWA will launch directly into kiosk mode (without forcing kiosk mode when accessed from the browser)

For temporary fullscreen during regular browsing, use the fullscreen button in the toolbar.

Important Notes:

• iOS/iPadOS limitations: Mobile Safari strips all URL parameters when adding to Home Screen and runs shortcuts in an isolated environment with separate storage from the main Safari app
• After creating a Home Screen app on iOS or iPadOS and activating Kiosk mode, the only way to change settings is to delete the Home Screen shortcut and recreate it
• In situations where you can edit a shortcut's URL, you can forcibly remove a "sticky" kiosk setting by adding &kiosk=false to the URL (or simply press Ctrl-K to exit kiosk mode if a keyboard is available)

Scan Lines: Enables a retro-style scan line effect

Scan Lines Style: Override the "auto" setting in case you prefer a different scale factor than what the automatic heuristics select for your browser and display

Units: Switches between US and metric units. (Note that some text-based products from the National Weather Service APIs contain embedded units that are not converted.)

Volume: Controls the audio level when music is enabled

Music

The WeatherStar had wonderful background music from the smooth jazz and new age genres by artists of the time. Lists of the music that played are available by searching online, but it's all copyrighted music and would be difficult to provide as part of this repository.

I've used AI tools to create WeatherStar-inspired music tracks that are unencumbered by copyright and are included in this repo. To keep the size down, I've only included 4 tracks. Additional tracks are in a companion repository ws4kp-music.

If you're looking for the original music that played during forecasts TWCClassics has thorough documentation of playlists.

Customizing the music

WeatherStar 4000+ supports background music during forecast playback. The music behavior depends on how you deploy the application:

Express server modes (npm start, DIST=1 npm start, or Dockerfile.server)

When running with Node.js, the server generates a playlist.json file by scanning the ./server/music directory for .mp3 files. If no files are found in ./server/music, it falls back to scanning ./server/music/default/. The playlist is served dynamically at the /playlist.json endpoint.

Adding your own music: Place .mp3 files in ./server/music/

Docker server example:

docker build -f Dockerfile.server -t ws4kp-server .
docker run -p 8080:8080 -v /path/to/local/music:/app/server/music ws4kp-server

Static hosting modes (default Dockerfile, nginx, Apache, etc.)

When hosting static files, there are two scenarios:

Static Docker deployment: The build process creates a playlist.json file with default tracks, but the Docker image intentionally removes it to force browser-based directory scanning. The browser attempts to fetch playlist.json, receives a 404 response with the X-Weatherstar header, which causes it to fallback to scanning the music/ directory.

Manual static hosting: If you build and upload the files yourself (npm run build), playlist.json will contain the default tracks unless you customize ./server/music/ before building.

For directory scanning to work properly:

• Your web server must generate directory listings for the music/ path
• Your web server must set the X-Weatherstar: true header (the provided nginx configuration does this)

Adding your own music: Place .mp3 files in music/ (or bind mount to /usr/share/nginx/html/music for Docker)

Docker static example:

docker run -p 8080:8080 -v /path/to/local/music:/usr/share/nginx/html/music ghcr.io/netbymatt/ws4kp

Subdirectories will not be scanned. When WeatherStar loads in the browser, it randomizes the track order and reshuffles on each loop through the playlist.

Music doesn't auto play

Ws4kp is muted by default, but if it was unmuted on the last visit it is coded to try and auto play music on subsequent visits. But, it's considered bad form to have a web site play music automatically on load, and I fully agree with this. Chrome and Firefox have extensive details on how and when auto play is allowed.

Chrome seems to be more lenient on auto play and will eventually let a site auto-play music if you're visited it enough recently and manually clicked to start playing music on each visit. It also has a flag you can add to the command line when launching Chrome: chrome.exe --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required. This is the best solution when using Kiosk-style setup.

If you're unable to pre-set the play state before entering kiosk mode (such as with a home dashboard implementation) you can add the query string value below to the url. The browser will still follow the auto play rules outlined above.

?settings-mediaPlaying-boolean=true

Community Notes

Thanks to the WeatherStar+ community for providing these discussions to further extend your retro forecasts!

• Stream as FFMPEG
• Weather like it's 1999 Raspberry pi, streaming, music and CRT all combined into a complete solution.
• ws4channels A Dockerized Node.js application to stream WeatherStar 4000 data into Channels DVR using Puppeteer and FFmpeg.
• SSL Certificates Discussion about how to host with an SSL certificate (enables geolocation).
• Changing playlists Possible ways to automatically change the playlist on a schedule.
• Customize Travel Forecast Cities

Customization

A hook is provided as server/scripts/custom.js to allow customizations to your own fork of this project, without accidentally pushing your customizations back upstream to the git repository. A sample file is provided at server/scripts/custom.sample.js and should be renamed to custom.js activate it.

When using Docker:

• Static deployment: Mount your custom.js file to /usr/share/nginx/html/scripts/custom.js
• Server deployment: Mount your custom.js file to /app/server/scripts/custom.js

Custom text scroll

If you would like your Weatherstar to have custom scrolling text in the bottom blue bar, turn on the setting for Enable RSS Feed/Text and then enter text in the resulting text box. Then press set.

Tip: You can have Weatherstar select randomly between several text strings on each pass through the current conditions. Use a pipe character to separate string. Welcome to Weatherstar|Thanks for watching.

Issue reporting and feature requests

Please do not report issues with api.weather.gov being down. It's a new service and not considered fully operational yet. I've also observed that the API can go down on a regional basis (based on NWS office locations). This means that you may have problems getting data for, say, Chicago right now, but Dallas and others are working just fine.

Before reporting an issue or requesting a feature please consider that this is not intended to be a perfect recreation of the WeatherStar 4000, it's a best effort that fits within what's available from the API and within a web browser.

Note: not all units are converted to metric, if selected. Some text-based products such as warnings are simple text strings provided from the national weather service and thus have baked-in units such as "gusts up to 60 mph." These values will not be converted.

The full moon icon is broken

This is a known problem with the Ws4kp as it ages. It was a problem with the actual Weatherstar hardware as well.

Phone App

An Android app is in a closed beta test. It's nothing too special, just a wrapper for displaying the website in a browser.

You can get this functionality without an app on both Andriod and iOS by using the install or add to home screen feature of your browser.

iOS native app? No. I own zero Apple devices and thus have no way to develop, test, compile or verify myself to the app store. That application will have to come from the community.

Related Projects

Not retro enough? Try the Weatherstar 3000+

Use

Linking directly to the live web site at https://weatherstar.netbymatt.com is encouraged. As is using the live site for digital signage, home dashboards, streaming and public display. Please note the disclaimer below.

Acknowledgements

This project is based on the work of Mike Battaglia. It was forked from his work in August 2020.

• Mike Battaglia for the original project and all of the code which draws the weather displays. This code remains largely intact and was a huge amount of work to get exactly right. He's also responsible for all of the background graphics including the maps used in the application.
• The team at TWCClassics for several resources.
  • A font set used on the original WeatherStar 4000
  • Icon sets
  • Countless photos and videos of WeatherStar 4000 forecasts used as references.
• The growing list of contributors to this repository

Disclaimer

This web site should NOT be used in life threatening weather situations, or be relied on to inform the public of such situations. The Internet is an unreliable network subject to server and network outages and by nature is not suitable for such mission critical use. If you require such access to NWS data, please consider one of their subscription services. The authors of this web site shall not be held liable in the event of injury, death or property damage that occur as a result of disregarding this warning.

The WeatherSTAR 4000 unit and technology is owned by The Weather Channel. This web site is a free, non-profit work by fans. All of the back ground graphics of this web site were created from scratch. The icons were created by Charles Abel and Nick Smith (http://twcclassics.com/downloads/icons.html) as well as by Malek Masoud. The fonts were originally created by Nick Smith (http://twcclassics.com/downloads/fonts.html).