Command Line Options

Overview

Supercell Wx accepts several command line options that can be used to modify the behavior of the application. These options can enable console output, run the application in portable mode, specify a custom settings directory, or select alternate Level 2 and Level 3 radar data providers. Options can be used when launching Supercell Wx from the command line, or by adding them to a shortcut or application launcher.

Supercell Wx - Free and open source advanced weather radar

Usage:
supercell-wx [qt options] [options]

Options:
-h [ --help ]             Display this help message
-c [ --console ]          Enable console output
--level2-provider url     Level 2 data provider URL. Protocol may be any of:
                          HTTP/HTTPS (ONDAS), or S3.
--level3-provider url     Level 3 data provider URL. Protocol may be any of:
                          HTTP/HTTPS (ONDAS or TGFTP), or S3.
-p [ --portable ]         Run in portable mode, storing settings in the
                          application directory
--settings-directory path Override the default settings directory with the
                          specified path

Qt Options:
  Qt platform and UI options (e.g., -style, -platform, -geometry)
  may also be specified. These are consumed by the Qt framework
  before application argument parsing and are not listed here.
  See https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qapplication.html for details.

Data Provider Options

By default, Supercell Wx downloads NEXRAD Level 2 and Level 3 data from AWS S3 (unidata-nexrad-level2 and unidata-nexrad-level3). Use --level2-provider and --level3-provider to override these defaults with an alternate source.

Supported URL schemes

Scheme	Level 2	Level 3
`http://` / `https://`	ONDAS servers	ONDAS or NWS TGFTP (auto-detected)
`s3://`	Custom S3 bucket (`s3://bucket-name/`)	Custom S3 bucket (`s3://bucket-name/`)

For HTTP/HTTPS Level 3 URLs, Supercell Wx probes the server for ONDAS configuration files. If an ONDAS config is found, ONDAS listing and product paths are used; otherwise, NWS TGFTP directory listing is assumed.

Environment variables

The command line options set the following environment variables, which can also be set directly:

SCWX_LEVEL2_DATA_PROVIDER_URL — Level 2 provider base URL
SCWX_LEVEL3_DATA_PROVIDER_URL — Level 3 provider base URL

When a provider URL contains iastate.edu, allisonhouse.com, or weatherpulse.com, Supercell Wx also loads an extended radar site list appropriate for that provider.

Examples

Iowa State Mesonet (Level 2):

supercell-wx --level2-provider https://mesonet-nexrad.agron.iastate.edu/level2/raw/

NWS TGFTP (Level 3):

supercell-wx --level3-provider https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/SL.us008001/DF.of/DC.radar/

Custom S3 bucket (Level 2):

supercell-wx --level2-provider s3://unidata-nexrad-level2/

Both levels can be specified together:

supercell-wx --level2-provider https://mesonet-nexrad.agron.iastate.edu/level2/raw/ --level3-provider https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/SL.us008001/DF.of/DC.radar/

Windows shortcut example

Add provider options to the Target field of a shortcut, after the executable path:

"C:\Program Files\Supercell Wx\supercell-wx.exe" --level2-provider https://mesonet-nexrad.agron.iastate.edu/level2/raw/