Chasebuddy

Chasebuddy European storm weather visualization platform for storm chasers, spotters and serious weather enthusiasts.

Radar, satellite, lightning, model data and storm evolution in one field-ready app.

19/08/2026

Those following ChaseBuddy already know we’ve been working on some stuff for quite some time. We’ve now put our dev version online so we can benchmark it properly, test performance in real-world use and keep refining it.

This is not a beta release or an official launch. It’s simply part of our development process, and it’s deliberately temporary.

So if you use the Windows app and have been curious to see what we’ve been working on, now is the time to have a look. Once we’ve gathered what we need from this test, parts of it may disappear again while we continue development.

The current version includes new European severe-weather mosaics:

* 18 dBZ Echo Tops
shows storm depth and vertical development.

* POSH
indicates the probability of severe hail.

* MESH
estimates the maximum potential hail size associated with a storm.

* MESH Swath
shows where the strongest estimated hail has tracked over time.

We’ve also added our new dual-polarisation products:

* CC / ρHV
useful for recognising differences in precipitation and features such as the melting layer.

* ZDR
adds information about particle shape and helps reveal structure within rain, hail and strong updrafts.

* KDP
particularly useful for highlighting very heavy precipitation and regions containing large amounts of liquid water.

* Hydrometeor Classification
lets you distinguish between things such as rain, snow, ice, graupel, hail and melting precipitation.

And that leads directly into what we’re most interested in testing right now: 3D Storm Interrogation.

You can explore complete precipitation volumes in 3D and draw vertical cross sections directly through storms.

Hydrometeor Classification is particularly impressive in 3D because you can see the microphysical structure throughout the full depth of a storm: rain underneath, the melting layer, graupel and hail inside the convective column, and ice spreading into the upper levels and anvil.

At this stage, performance is one of our biggest questions.
e.g. My development system is an i9-9900KF, 32 GB RAM and an RTX 4080 Super, so naturally: “It works on my device.”™ 😄

Anyone in ICT knows how useful that statement is.

That’s why having other people play with it is genuinely useful to us. Different CPUs, GPUs and systems give us a much better picture of where the limits are and what still needs optimisation.

Once we’ve settled on a solid implementation on desktop, we’ll have a much stronger foundation for eventually moving this into the mobile ecosystem.

There are still a few kinks too. Somewhere during all these changes we appear to have broken radar not being available without satellite on hehe. We know about it and we’re working on it. But hey... sometimes stuff goes wrong.

So again: this is temporary and primarily there for testing.

If you have the Windows app and want to see how the ChaseBuddy’s 3D storm interrogation currently works, this is your chance to play with it before we take it back to the workshop.

Several major ChaseBuddy features are on the wayOver the past weeks, we have been working on several new additions that ...
31/07/2026

Several major ChaseBuddy features are on the way

Over the past weeks, we have been working on several new additions that will gradually be released in ChaseBuddy.

The exact release order has not yet been determined, but we have quite a few exciting features in development.

* A completely custom basemap

ChaseBuddy will receive its own European basemap, built specifically for the application.

Instead of being locked into one fixed map design, you will be able to choose how the basemap is styled and which elements should stand out.

Whether you prefer a clean and minimal map, stronger road visibility, more geographical detail or a darker style for nighttime chasing, the basemap can be adapted to the way you use ChaseBuddy.

* Fully integrated navigation

Navigation will be available directly inside ChaseBuddy, without needing to switch to another application.

You will be able to navigate to a searched city, a selected location on the map, a shooting location or even a storm-intercept point, while radar, satellite imagery, lightning, storm detections, extrapolations and other weather layers remain visible and continue updating around your route.

The navigation system includes full turn-by-turn guidance:

- Written manoeuvre instructions
- Visual navigation icons
- Text-to-speech voice guidance
- 2D north-up mode
- 2D heading-up mode
- 3D heading-up mode

This allows ChaseBuddy to remain both a weather platform and a navigation tool while you are actively chasing.

* Storm reports and storm evolution

A new reporting system will allow users to submit observations directly from their current location.

Reports can also be linked to a specific detected storm. When a report is attached to a storm, it is stored at the exact timestamp at which the observation was made.

Those reports then appear directly inside the storm-interrogation graphs and are ordered along the storm’s complete two-hour history timeline.

This means you will not only be able to see how a storm evolved through radar, lightning activity and calculated storm metrics, but also how it was observed in reality by chasers.

Reports from people on the road can be combined with observations from people following the storm from the couch, creating a much more complete picture of the storm’s development over time.

You may, for example, see when a storm first produced strong wind, when hail was observed, when visibility deteriorated or when a shelf cloud or rotating structure was reported, all placed at the correct point in the storm’s historical timeline.

It fits directly into our StormVolution mindset: following the complete evolution of a storm, rather than looking at only a single radar image or isolated report.

* City search

A new city-search feature will make it much easier to quickly find locations across Europe.

From the search results, you will be able to move the map directly to a city or immediately start navigation towards it.

* AI Frontal detections

We have also taken an existing AI model for frontal detection, made it operational within our own infrastructure and integrated it into the ChaseBuddy ecosystem.

Our AI model itself runs on conventional, non-AI numerical weather prediction output. Our operational AI layer then analyses those meteorological fields to detect and classify cold, warm, occluded and stationary fronts.

The detections can be displayed together with other ChaseBuddy layers, including satellite imagery. This makes it possible to view frontal structures in the wider context of cloud patterns, pressure systems, precipitation and developing convection instead of seeing them only as isolated lines on a model chart.

The system is designed as an additional analytical layer rather than a replacement for human interpretation.

The frontal detections remain an experimental product and are certainly not perfect. Nevertheless, with a Critical Success Index of more than 60%, in some regimes even up to 78%, the model already provides highly useful information.

Combined with the other meteorological layers in the ChaseBuddy, it helps build a fuller and more coherent picture of the overall synoptic regime and its evolution.

These features are all coming soon and are in the final stages of production. There's no real release date yet but it should be rather soon.

More details will follow as the individual features get closer to release.

A small heads-up for the ChaseBuddy users.You may already have noticed it but during the past few hours - and likely thr...
26/07/2026

A small heads-up for the ChaseBuddy users.

You may already have noticed it but during the past few hours - and likely throughout the coming hours and days - parts of our server infrastructure were, are & will be operating under unusually heavy load.

That may occasionally result in slower loading times or temporarily reduced performance in the app.

Fortunately, there is a very good reason for that.

Behind the scenes, we are currently importing, processing, building and reshaping an enormous amount of European geospatial data.

Not thousands of objects. Not millions... Billions upon billions.

Roads, boundaries, places, structures and countless other elements are currently being analysed, reorganised and transformed into formats that the ChaseBuddy can use directly on its own infrastructure.

At the same time, entirely new datasets, indexes and systems are being constructed around that information.

This is not part of the normal daily workload. They involve resource- heavy build processes running alongside the existing processing of GFS, ECMWF, AROME, HARMONIE and all the other weather data that already powers the app.

But... It's temporary & a one-shot preparation. So for the moment, our servers occasionally have to divide their attention between processing the atmosphere and digesting what can best be described as most of Europe.

The temporary inconvenience is therefore serving a very specific purpose. A purpose involving considerably more than simply changing how the map looks.

Once all the pieces are in place, locations, roads, weather and movement may start interacting in ways they currently do not.

So yes, the buddy may occasionally feel a little slower for a while.

But only because our servers are currently busy rebuilding Europe around the weather.

Road by road. Place by place. Layer by layer.

20/07/2026

To keep the app available on Android we needed to do an update to adhere to the new Google policies, guidelines & development framework.

This is a yearly update we are obliged to do as Google changes their policies & SDK framework on a yearly basis.

Android users will therefor see an update for the app while iOS users will not.

There are no features or functionality added nor changed, so iOS users are not missing out on anything.

We merely updated the app to make use of the new policies & framework Google is forcing on all Android applications in the Play Store.

That being said, a bigger update is coming in the near future which will enable & feature new capabilities for all platforms.

05/07/2026

We have made some optimisations & added a few updates + QOL improvements the last few weeks.

Some are aimed at optimising the data usage, improving server load & further memory optimisations on the app.

* Upgraded the METAR & station view resulting in even more stations & handled windstill conditions.
* Added a timestamp to see the release time & valid timerange of the observations.
* Fixed a small issue with the layering of the Aurora range rings.
* Improved the data usage for lightning data.
* Further optimised memory footprint in the app.
* Better error handling when certain data is not available.

We are planning to release this update in the coming days for all platforms.

Stay tuned.

18/05/2026

We've just released an update (v1.0.27) on Android & iOS to fix some issues

* When the radar loop is paused, switching to another radar product now keeps the currently active timestamp so you can easily switch between relfectivity & velocity.
* Fixed an issue where the dropdowns for lightning history colors and animated streamlines could be partially hidden.
* Fixed the Aurora range rings sometimes not showing.
* Added some code optimisations as well.

Enjoy!

17/05/2026

Both iOS & Google have approved our release of the 1.0.25 app version.

Enjoy!

Currently, a rather extensive convective line is active across much of Western Europe, stretching all the way from Denma...
17/05/2026

Currently, a rather extensive convective line is active across much of Western Europe, stretching all the way from Denmark down into Spain.

Some embedded cells produce some lightning as well & are evolving into (albeit weak) thunderstorms.

Using a rough distance measurement along the line, it comes out at around 1,350 km in length.

The 1.0.25 update is now live for Android & Windows, featuring the 3D terrain & the surface-observation clustering.iOS u...
17/05/2026

The 1.0.25 update is now live for Android & Windows, featuring the 3D terrain & the surface-observation clustering.

iOS users will have to wait until Apple has approved the release.

With the ongoing work around Surface Observations, you may have already noticed one very clear side effect of the increa...
16/05/2026

With the ongoing work around Surface Observations, you may have already noticed one very clear side effect of the increased data density:

visually, it can become a lot.

That is of course a good problem to have. More observations mean more detail, more context, and a much better live picture of what is happening near the surface. But it also means we need to present that information in a way that remains readable and useful.

Over the next couple of days, we will release a new version of the app that tackles exactly this.

Surface observation points will now be clustered intelligently. When you are zoomed out, nearby observations will be grouped together to keep the map clean and readable. As you zoom in, more individual observation points will gradually appear, giving you the detail when and where you actually need it.

At the same time, we are also releasing 3D terrain.

And that is where things get really interesting.

For storm chasing, photography, observation planning, or simply understanding the local environment, this opens up a whole new layer of situational awareness. You will no longer just pick a location on a flat map and hope it gives you a decent view.

You will be able to actually see whether that chosen location sits on a hill, ridge, slope, valley, plateau, or open elevated terrain. You can inspect the surroundings, understand the viewing angle, and get a much better feeling for whether the spot has a real line of sight over the landscape.

In other words: before you drive there, you can already judge whether your selected position might actually be a good viewing location.

Adres

Dullaert
Eeklo
9900

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+32496204294

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