# Why is weather RADAR slow to load? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2020, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075 "2020-04-18T19:07:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tilt-A-Whirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@Tilt-A-Whirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tilt-A-Whirl)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/1 "2020-04-18T19:07:53Z")
I have a fast internet connection, I can click on a YouTube video and instantly be watching a 30fps video in high definition with stereo sound. But if I go to [weather.com](http://weather.com) and try to watch the local radar map, it slowly builds it like I’m on a 1200 baud modem and it’s 1988. It’s a 20 frame loop with no sound. What gives? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/2 "2020-04-18T19:41:35Z")
Maybe it’s independently fetching data points for each individual pixel from the weather balloon that’s reporting it? Sorry… the only useful factual data point I can give you is that my location map loads quite quickly for me. [Here’s](https://weather.com/weather/radar/interactive/l/afbaa9036519102f29605c3c2379e8925e8815208ee94748a296f375bf7f7ae0) what I’m seeing. Are you on an entirely different page, or same interface different x,y coordinates? How quickly does the link provided here load for you? Pops right up on mine and furthermore I can use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out and it does so without lag. ---
**Author:** ![Tilt-A-Whirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@Tilt-A-Whirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tilt-A-Whirl)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/3 "2020-04-19T17:15:08Z")
I tried your link, and it’s just as slow, about 15 seconds to just bring up the map, and another 15 to get the radar loop animating smoothly. Again, I have a fast connection, nothing else is slow like this. So strange. Like you, I’m guessing the radar data is dense, but still… ---
**Author:** ![EdelweissPirate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@EdelweissPirate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdelweissPirate)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/4 "2020-04-19T19:48:22Z")
What’s the question here, exactly? If it’s “why is the [weather.com](http://weather.com) local radar animation slow to load?” then the answer is simple: whatever scheme they’re using for the map’s backend is kinda crappy. Is that the central question? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/5 "2020-04-19T20:04:12Z")
I had a look at the page code, and it is not meant to be read by mortals, so I’m not sure this applies to the actual map, but there is a lot of SVG graphics happening there, meaning your browser is doing the image generation. I’ve no idea if it’s enough to slow things down though, I think most of it is creating the surrounding frills, like the maps menu. Another possible issue is that [weather.com](http://weather.com) is to a large degree just repackaging data from [weather.gov](http://weather.gov). It’s the national weather service that collects all the data and is obligated to pass it on and have an ugly web-page to make sure [weather.com](http://weather.com) stays in business. That makes for a lot of potential bottlenecks and excuses for optimizing the flow of data. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/6 "2020-04-19T20:08:37Z")
Hey **Tilt** , what happens when you load a different data-intensive link, like this [Google Maps Satellite View](https://goo.gl/maps/p8DwHcJz75uLjq6s5) or something? It seems like at least part of the problem is on your end, whether it be latency or low bandwidth or a corrupted browser cache or whatever. It takes 2 seconds on my decade-old MacBook Pro to render that radar map. ---
**Author:** ![Tilt-A-Whirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@Tilt-A-Whirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tilt-A-Whirl)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/7 "2020-04-20T15:44:44Z")
Thanks for your replies. Edelweiss, yes, my main question is, why does the radar map at [weather.com](http://weather.com) (but to some extent other weather sites as well) take what seems like an abnormally long time to load, compared to everything else on the internet. AHunter3, that site loaded fine, in about 2 seconds. I’ve noticed the radar issue on different computers in different places. Hence my original question. It’s noticeably slower than almost anything else I encounter on the web. Maybe it’s just me, but I assumed it was something everyone dealt with. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/8 "2020-04-20T17:38:08Z")
> [@Tilt-A-Whirl](#): > > Thanks for your replies. > > Edelweiss, yes, my main question is, why does the radar map at [weather.com](http://weather.com) (but to some extent other weather sites as well) take what seems like an abnormally long time to load, compared to everything else on the internet. > > AHunter3, that site loaded fine, in about 2 seconds. I’ve noticed the radar issue on different computers in different places. Hence my original question. It’s noticeably slower than almost anything else I encounter on the web. Maybe it’s just me, but I assumed it was something everyone dealt with. DOn’t know about their website, but their Android app brings in weather radar animations pretty quickly. IN comparison, Weather Underground’s app is painfully slow to bring in radar animations. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/9 "2020-04-20T19:32:49Z")
It’s really impossible to say without knowing how these sites operate. But OP is entirely correct that it shouldn’t take but a second or two for a 20 frame animation to load. I wonder if the slowness happens accidentally (maybe due to way too much traffic on a server?) or on purpose to give more attention to ads? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/10 "2020-04-20T19:45:31Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > It’s really impossible to say without knowing how these sites operate. But OP is entirely correct that it shouldn’t take but a second or two for a 20 frame animation to load. I wonder if the slowness happens accidentally (maybe due to way too much traffic on a server?) or on purpose to give more attention to ads? Well it’s not loading an animation, it’s creating one from data for the map location and zoom level the user has specified. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/11 "2020-04-21T00:07:50Z")
NOAA radars site, like their satellite image site, and the Washington Post likely run COBOL on the back ends of their HTML. With modern servers, this probably requires 17 or more levels of virtual machine to get the data out. Then again, the pages may just be collages put together in real time from a large collection of independent sub-sites. That’ll slow things down to the rate of the slowest site. The sites have always been slow. I expect they Always will be. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/12 "2020-04-21T00:24:23Z")
I have the world’s worst Internet and I can get that and NOAA weather radar to load within a few seconds, so maybe it’s not just the radar pages that are the problem. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-weather-radar-slow-to-load/852075/13 "2020-04-21T00:26:57Z")
Of course it’s slow to load, it’s a map of the entire world 😃 Mine used to be slow, not sure what changed but it’s only about one second now and it keeps up with scrolling with just a tiny lag.