receiving control points representing compressed weather radar reflectivity data, wherein the controls points are originally extracted from an uncompressed version of the weather radar reflectivity data by a process that identifies specific points that each have a deviation of less than or equal to one pixel from surrounding points on a smooth curve, these particular points represent zero-crossing points, and wherein the smooth curve represents an average of the surrounding points within a given contour as identified within the uncompressed version of the weather radar reflectivity data, and wherein each surrounding point on the given contour that lies between two consecutive zero-crossing points and falls within a maximum predefined distance of the smooth curve is considered to be one of the control points that is represented in the compressed weather radar reflectivity data;

reproducing contours in response to the control points; and

dynamically filling a region within each contour with a predefined color to produce a decompressed version of the compressed weather radar reflectivity data.