Makin-Things/weather-radar-card v3.6.1-rc1

v3.6.1-rc1 — experimental wind sources + radar opacity fix

on GitHub

Release candidate. This bundles one stable bug fix (radar opacity, #151) with an experimental wind-source registry that adds NDFD over US regions and AICON globally. The wind work is the bake target — if nothing surfaces, 3.6.1 ships as-is; if edge cases turn up we'll tune in rc2.

Pin pre-3.6.1 wind behaviour: set wind_source: 'dwd_icon' in your card YAML (or pick it via the editor's new Wind Data Source dropdown). Existing configs with dwd_wind / dwd_wind_flow set keep working unchanged; only the wind data behind them changes.

What's new — Experimental

Wind source registry (wind_source config field)

Three options — pick the forecast model behind the barbs / arrows / streamline overlays:

• 'dwd_aicon' (new default for non-US) — DWD's AI-augmented variant of ICON-D2. Same 0.25° global grid (~28 km) and hourly cadence as ICON-D2, served from the same WCS endpoint; visibly better short-range accuracy at zero behaviour cost. Configs without wind_source set silently upgrade from ICON to AICON on next reload.
• 'dwd_icon' — Raw DWD ICON-D2 numerical model (the previous default). 0.25° global grid, hourly anchor, +48 h forecast, new model run every 3 h. Opt-in for users who prefer the unadjusted model output.
• 'ndfd_wind' (new default for fresh installs in US locations) — NWS National Digital Forecast Database (forecaster blend of HRRR + RAP + NAM + GFS). 2.5 km over CONUS / AK / HI / PR, hourly updates, 3-hourly forecast steps out to 7+ days. The same source api.weather.gov gridpoint forecasts come from, but as a raster grid the bulk-fetch pipeline can consume in one WCS call.

Editor's Wind Overlay subpage has a new Wind Data Source dropdown above the Style picker; cadence helper line under it switches per-source.

Fresh-install auto-default by location

When you add the card to a new dashboard via the picker (getStubConfig), wind_source is auto-set based on HA's location:

• hass.config.country === 'US' → 'ndfd_wind'
• Otherwise, lat/lon bbox check against CONUS / AK / HI / PR — match → 'ndfd_wind'
• Else → 'dwd_aicon' (the new global default)

Existing configs are untouched — they don't have wind_source set, and absent-field resolves at runtime to 'dwd_aicon'.

Silent NDFD → AICON fallback

When wind_source: 'ndfd_wind' but the viewport centre pans outside US coverage (e.g., US user panning over the Atlantic or Pacific), the fetcher silently dispatches to AICON for that bbox so you still see real wind data instead of fill values. Configured source is unchanged in your config; one info log per session announces the auto-switch.

Example configs

Pin to a specific source:

type: custom:weather-radar-card
dwd_wind_flow: true
wind_source: dwd_icon   # pre-3.6.1 default — pin to keep current visuals

type: custom:weather-radar-card
dwd_wind: arrows
wind_source: ndfd_wind  # US user wants high-res arrows

Bug fix (stable)

• Shadow clouds / flicker at radar_opacity < 1 (#151). With per-layer opacity set to radar_opacity, two semi-transparent radar layers stacked during the crossfade and the alpha-over composite brightened during the overlap window — visible as "shadow clouds" (rain from both frames showing through where they didn't perfectly align) and as a flicker on every animation tick. Moved all radar tile layers into a dedicated wrcRadar Leaflet pane (z-index 240) and applied radar_opacity on the pane. Individual layers crossfade between 0 and 1, so the composite α inside the pane stays at 1 throughout the overlap; the pane multiplies the whole composite by radar_opacity once. DWD coverage mask layer unaffected.

Known limitations of the experimental wind work

• Bilinear sampling near NDFD coverage boundaries may produce slightly attenuated wind values within ~1 cell of the coast — mostly visible at AK / HI coastlines. The 9999.0 fill sentinel is detected and treated as calm so particles don't teleport, but the bilinear blend across a valid/fill cell pair still attenuates.
• Silent fallback uses bbox-centre decision point — a panning user who half-crosses the coast sees the source flip on the next refetch (transient mid-pan visuals are unaffected).
• 11 locale files have [en]-prefixed English fallbacks for the new editor strings (Wind Data Source dropdown / cadence notes). Real translations land in a follow-up; the [en] marker is so translators can spot which keys still need attention.

Internal

• Tests: 403 → 440. New coverage for US-detection bbox edges, country-code precedence, AICON / NDFD URL shapes, NDFD Mercator / speed-dir parsing, fill-value sentinel handling, silent-fallback dispatch with cache-key isolation.
• New file src/wind-source-caps.ts holds the source registry + US-detection helpers.

Upgrade notes

No config migration runs. Existing configs work unchanged.

• Wind users on non-US locales: your wind overlay will look slightly different on first reload after upgrading — that's the silent ICON → AICON default flip. The data source is the same provider and same grid resolution; AICON is the AI-augmented post-processing variant. If you prefer the raw model, set wind_source: 'dwd_icon'.
• Wind users in the US: existing configs without wind_source continue to use AICON globally (not NDFD). To switch to NDFD over US regions, add wind_source: 'ndfd_wind' to your card YAML or pick it via the editor.
• Fresh installs in US locations get NDFD automatically.

Full Changelog: v3.6.0...v3.6.1-rc1