Monsoon Station
Monsoon Station is a real-time weather music project that generates evolving sonic landscapes from live atmospheric data. It listens to the sky continuously, translating changes in the structure of the atmosphere into sound.
In addition to surface measurements like temperature, pressure, and wind speed, Monsoon Station draws on radiosonde data from NOAA—weather balloons that sample the vertical profile of the atmosphere as they rise. These measurements are interpreted through Skew-T charts and instability indices such as the lifted index, allowing the system to respond not just to weather at ground level, but to the layered dynamics that govern cloud formation, convection, and storm potential.
A central mechanism in the system is the detection of “closed gaps,” moments where temperature and dew point converge at specific altitudes. These convergences signal saturation and the possibility of cloud formation. In Monsoon Station, they become compositional events. Different altitudes, gradients, and rates of change influence pitch, density, texture, and rhythm. The result is not a sonification of raw data, but a structured interpretation of atmospheric processes as they unfold.
The music is never fixed. It emerges from instability, from thresholds being crossed and uncrossed, from air lifting, cooling, and condensing. Calm days produce sparse, slowly shifting sound. Unstable air masses introduce tension, clustering, and sudden changes. The system remains legible to meteorological logic while allowing space for ambiguity and drift.
Monsoon Station exists as both software and a listening environment. Its behavior is shaped by real-time atmospheric data and the structures used to interpret it.
The project was exhibited at Coconino Center for the Arts as part of CUMULUS: The Art of Meteorology (June 29 – September 28, 2024), where it received a Jurors’ Award.
Monsoon Station is an attempt to stay with complexity—to treat the atmosphere not as a backdrop, but as an active, stratified, and expressive system. It listens for structure in turbulence and gives that structure time to speak.
