// Cornell · Coding for Design · Generative Media
Weather Particles
A web-based particle system that turns live, location-specific weather into an ambient atmosphere that keeps changing with the sky outside.
Overview
Weather is something we feel through light, temperature, movement, and mood, yet on screens it is reduced to an icon and a number. Weather Particles reads the live conditions where the visitor is and turns them into a single, continuously evolving particle field.
Instead of drawing rain or clouds, the system treats weather as a set of forces acting on particles: their motion, density, and structure carry the meaning. As an extension, we proposed showing it on a ceiling as a luminous installation.
What we built
48 weather codes → 5 states1 shared flow-field ruleLive data by visitor locationCeiling installation proposal
My contribution at a glance
Concept & visual directionCloudy stateWindy state
The particle engine, weather-API mapping, and the Sunny, Rainy, and Snowy states were developed by my teammate.
Idea
01
Weather as forces, not pictures
We avoided literal scenes and symbols. Every weather condition acts on the same particle field, so a change in the sky shows up as a change in how things move.
A
Not a picture
no rain drawings, no cloud icons
B
A field of forces
motion, density, and structure carry meaning
C
Personal and live
your location, your weather, right now
System
02
From an API response to a flow field
The visitor’s live conditions come from WeatherAPI. We sorted its 48 condition codes into five weather states, and each state maps raw readings such as wind, cloud cover, precipitation, UV, and temperature onto one shared set of particle parameters.
Live weatherWeatherAPI · by location
→
Weather state48 codes → 5 states
→
Mappingreadings → parameters
→
Flow fieldone shared rule
→
RenderingThree.js · stretch, fracture, frost
velocity = shape force + large flow + small flow + direction + vertical bias
// one rule for every state; only the parameters change
// one rule for every state; only the parameters change
States
03
One field, many skies
Each state reads different inputs but speaks the same visual language, so moving from clear to stormy feels like the same world changing rather than a new scene loading.
Cloudy · mine
Volume and softnessCloud cover sets the volume and softness of the field, air quality its clarity, and wind a slow lateral drift.
Rainy
From hover to fallPrecipitation pulls particles off their shapes into falling streaks; humidity makes the rain heavier and more diffuse.
Snowy
Building upPrecipitation and wind drive a sharper, fractured fall, with an accumulation parameter that grows over time.
Sunny
RadiatingUV index sets rotation and spread; temperature shifts the palette from cool to warm.
Windy · mine
Direction as motionWind speed and direction set the strength and heading of the global drift across the field.
Installation
04
From a browser tab to a ceiling
The same system can run at architectural scale. We proposed working with the campus art museum to project it onto the ceiling of a cantilevered canopy outside the building, so passers-by would walk under a luminous version of the weather above them.
Takeaway
Weather you feel, not read.
Mapping every condition onto one shared set of forces keeps the piece coherent: the data changes the behavior, never the scene.