I was looking at a cloud the other day, maybe a Nimbostratus. This cloud had a nice concave bite to it and the top streamed off as a possible Altostratus.

My thinking was that there was a large bubble of high pressure that the moist air had hit and was forced up. How can I confirm my thoughts? Well, load the skynumbers app on a camera capable device and view the sky.

Data from the camera, position in location terrain and direction of view all goes to the local weather service's computational model. The data received back to the device overlays isobars, isotachs and weather front patterns as bubbles of tainted colour with contour lines and sized flowing arrows. Flocks of platonic solids are there to express complex interplay of front systems.

Of course, the scale is change is quite drastic, going from such a wide overview to one small dot looking up with a limited window. Some computational fluidity is going to be needed to stretch the actual data into comprehensible 3D virtual overlay around the user. At some point the level of detail will stop actual data being shown but it is a local view.

Weather is a wonder. Now with a bit more detailing.
-- wjt, Jun 23 2019

You had me at "flocks of platonic solids". [+]
-- pertinax, Jun 23 2019


// a large bubble of high pressure //

No. Steep pressure gradients only exist in transient, violent phenomena like tornado funnels. Otherwise, pressure changes are spread over large distances. A much more likely explanation is a big difference in air temperature and therefore density.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 23 2019


That's the thing, it is on such a large scale, the close pressure gradient could have been an optical illusion of the distances.
-- wjt, Jun 26 2019


A new way to look at weather maps and radar? I'm on board!

Now integrate it with the AR HUD for my boat that overlays an area chart for where I'm looking.
-- unhelpful_fool, Jun 26 2019


You can delegate that to the Executive Officer, or the PWO/AWO, shirley ?
-- 8th of 7, Jun 26 2019


Well, Augmented Reality is a Thing, and you'd need to access the 3D data used to model the atmosphere from your meteorological supplier (rather than the 2D results used for maps), so I don't see why not.
With the level of computer smarts these days, the camera view of the clouds themselves could probably be used (cloud boundary = change in atmospheric condition, or something...).
-- neutrinos_shadow, Jun 26 2019



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