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Glossary

Chris Nighswonger edited this page Apr 2, 2026 · 2 revisions

Glossary

APRS-IS

Automatic Packet Reporting System — Internet Service. Kanfei connects to APRS-IS to collect nearby CWOP citizen weather station observations for the Map View.

Archive record

Historical weather record stored by station firmware and/or synchronized into Kanfei archive tables. Not all station types support archive retrieval — check the driver's capabilities.

Baud rate

Serial communication speed. Common values are 2400 (Davis legacy) and 19200 (Davis Vantage). Only relevant for serial-connected stations.

Capabilities

Set of feature flags declared by each hardware driver, indicating what operations the station supports (archive sync, calibration, clock sync, rain reset, etc.). The UI adapts based on the connected driver's capabilities.

CWOP

Citizen Weather Observer Program, an APRS-based weather data sharing network.

Degraded mode

Web app state where logger/station connection is unavailable, but API/UI remain partially functional.

Driver type

The station_driver_type config key that determines which hardware driver the logger daemon instantiates. Examples: "legacy" (Davis WeatherLink serial).

HardwareInfo

Data class returned by StationDriver.detect_hardware() containing the station's model name, model code, and capability flags.

IDW interpolation

Inverse distance weighting — a spatial interpolation method used by the Map View to generate pressure isobar contours from discrete station observations.

Isobars

Lines of equal atmospheric pressure drawn on the Map View. Kanfei computes isobars server-side using IDW interpolation of nearby station barometric readings at configurable intervals (default 1 hPa).

IPC

Inter-process communication between Kanfei web app and logger daemon (TCP JSON protocol).

LOOP packet

Davis-specific term for the serial data packet containing current sensor readings. Other hardware types use different data formats (HTTP JSON, UDP datagrams, etc.) but all are normalized to SensorSnapshot by the driver.

Logger daemon

Kanfei process that owns the station connection, polls hardware, writes DB, and serves IPC commands.

Nowcast

Short-term forecast guidance generated from local observations and weather context, optionally including AI analysis.

Poll interval

How often the logger daemon requests current data from the station.

SensorSnapshot

Canonical data class returned by every driver's poll() method. Contains all sensor values in standard units (°F, mph, inHg, etc.). The driver is responsible for converting from native hardware formats.

Spray evaluation

Constraint-based go/no-go recommendation for planned application windows.

Station config

Key/value configuration records stored in station_config table.

StationDriver

Abstract base class (backend/app/protocol/base.py) that all hardware drivers implement. Defines the standard interface for connecting, polling, and controlling weather stations regardless of manufacturer.

Theta-e

Equivalent potential temperature; a derived atmospheric thermodynamic value included in computed metrics.

WAL mode

SQLite write-ahead logging mode used for improved concurrent read/write behavior.

Web app

FastAPI process serving REST API, static frontend, WebSocket relay, and background services.

WebSocket

Persistent connection used by Kanfei to push live updates (/ws/live) to browser clients.

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