BalloonTracks began as an operator first view to turn 24 hour WindBorne telemetry into clear, live tracks. I built a tolerant parser for inconsistent hour files, framed positions by hour, then stitched points into per balloon paths using nearest neighbor with speed and jump caps. The goal was simple and mission driven show where balloons were and how they moved without forcing operators to wrangle raw data.
The app renders speed colored polylines on a Leaflet map with tooltips for time, speed, and altitude, and refreshes on a five minute cadence. I added an Open Meteo ERA5 wind overlay at selectable pressure levels to explain drift and speed spikes, plus controls for track count, thinning distance, min segments, and max speed. Server routes in Next.js fetch and normalize the data, keeping the client lightweight and reliable for real time use.