9 ms·

Let's not forget that, at least in the US, weather data is publicly funded and excellent forecasts are available at a very granular level. For example, here's t

by joncp 7y ago

Let's not forget that, at least in the US, weather data is publicly funded and excellent forecasts are available at a very granular level. For example, here's the weather at Apple Park: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-122.009263237495&lat=37.336696137840946 https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-122.009263237... ... And here's the graph for up-to-the-minute detail: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=37.3367&lon=-122.0093&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=graphical https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=37.3367&lon=-1... It ain't pretty, but it works and you've already paid for it.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
More importantly, this should be protected and demanded to be expanded upon by citizens. No one can acquire and shut down the National Weather Service, nor any apps they develop with public money released to the public domain. Protect public goods.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  Dark sky is not a public good, it's a for-profit business that puts a shiny interface on the same information available to everyone. It also added user reporting and analytics, so added material value. The app cost money. Why don't you lobby your congressman to have NOAA develop a better app instead? You can't make a privately-developed program a "public good"; citizens can't just "demand" that dark sky remains independent and expands because they didn't pay for it. Either lobby the government for a better app, wait for the private sector to develop a better app, or lobby the government to attach a license to the data prohibiting commercial use (though this would kill the other apps, too).
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    You might re-read my comment. Nowhere do I say Dark Sky is a public good. I do lobby my congressperson for NOAA to have more open data practices and better funding for app development. Citizens can demand products from government be at parity or better than private corporation products, and government has the funding to do it. So why not do it?
    - big_chungus 7y ago
      I'll note that you edited your comment after I posted my reply, and are now making it sound like you didn't. It originally included something to the effect of, "This shouldn't be allowed to happen."
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        I made no such edit, and at no time made such a statement. I take no issue with Dark Sky being acquired (EDIT:) and my comment is only to vocally advocate for government-run services that cannot be acquired (to provide continuity of quality service and delivery of data products to citizens and the systems and apps they use to consume said services and data products).
dstaley 7y ago
My primary use of the Dark Sky API is for minute-by-minute forecasts. I've yet to find another API that can answer the question "Do I have enough time to walk my dog before it starts raining?"
- abrowne 7y ago
  Same here, for the website. I actually find their forecasts beyond a few hours pretty bad¹, so I use weather.gov, but I haven't found anything as good at telling me whether it will rain in the next 20 minutes. 1: Both seemly wrong more often and more importantly unclear whether they mean a greater or lesser chance or amount of rain or snow, which makes a big difference when you are, say, biking to work.
  - dstaley 7y ago
    If you're not consuming the API, AccuWeather's MinuteCast is pretty nice!
    - abrowne 7y ago
      Thanks, it does look like a good replacement.
- airstrike 7y ago
  AccuWeather has MinuteCast which does the same thing
- SirLuxuryYacht 7y ago
  My go-to for this is an app called Radar Scope [0], which is the best $10 I've ever spent on an app. Its very easy to pull it up and look at the radar products with a useful color scale (as opposed to others which make light showers look like the apocalypse). Based on the quality I assume its target market is for stormchasers and weather professionals. Its fast and has most of the radar products, including velocities. I originally bought it to answer the question "Should I shelter from this tornado?" The downside is that there is no forecasting, but thats freely available through the NWS [1]. Not affiliated, just stoked. [0] https://www.radarscope.app/ https://www.radarscope.app/ [1] https://www.weather.gov/ https://www.weather.gov/
TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
https://mobile.weather.gov https://mobile.weather.gov is a good one for mobile devices.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  And the equivalent for Canadians https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.gc.ec.weather_app_android.ops https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.gc.ec.weath... https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/id1334221563 https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/id1334221563
  - Marsymars 7y ago
    The Environment Canada forecasts are my preferred data source for weather, but the app desperately needs UI polish.
maliker 7y ago
Ain't pretty matches my experience. My team pulls a lot of weather data for utility engineering work we do, and the NOAA APIs have proven very hard to navigate. Some data only available via FTP, lots of different weather station networks with different metrics (e.g. lots of variety in the cloud/irradiance data). Darksky provided a nice clean interface, but I guess we'll go back to cobbling things together directly from NOAA.
- RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
  Pretty much the same for me. What a disappointment.
- thisisbrians 7y ago
  Any clue how hard it would be to create an open-source alternative to the DarkSky API? My company needs one, too. Maybe we could band forces and organize an open-source alternative. I know it won't be as good, but I'm curious what other people in our position think...
  - maliker 7y ago
    We'd be interested! I think it will be pretty hard to do well in open source though. Server costs and keeping things working when NOAA (etc.) sources change is probably going to be expensive.
    - stephenr 7y ago
      If it’s open source there’s no specific requirement for the project to provide a hosted instance. Develop the (Ideally extensible) logic to parse a given government funded weather source into a common format, and have “API consumers” run their own instance of services (or set them up an instance for $ and use the profits to help with project costs).
      - SiVal 7y ago
        Not disagreeing, just extending. Dark Sky merges multiple weather data sources, even in a single country, and I use it for a private app that deals with weather all around the world. An open source project could just be code, not a service, but that code should have a config where you specified which sources to fetch and how often instead of choosing "a given govt-funded weather source".
starpilot 7y ago
These forecasts are based on the GFS, which has finite resolution at 9-km I think, so the "point forecasts" you get from weather.gov are limited by that.
ryandvm 7y ago
> It ain't pretty, but it works and you've already paid for it. I've been following the public weather data scene for a long time and I'm pretty sure that UX for all the NOAA/NWS web sites is horrible by design, so to speak. After all, there are plenty of well designed .gov sites (e.g. https://recreation.gov/ https://recreation.gov/), but just try browsing around weather.gov for a few minutes. It's horrible. I mean, the data is top-notch and it technically works, but the experience is awful. Weather.gov has had the exact same site for at least a decade. This is completely speculative, but I would not be surprised to find a link between campaign contributions from the likes of the The Weather Channel and the decision to completely underfund the web development teams at NWS. Nothing else explains why some of the United States most valuable public data is presented on a web site barely more functional than Craigslist.
- liyanage 7y ago
  > I'm pretty sure that UX for all the NOAA/NWS web sites is horrible by design That's spot on, John Oliver did a whole episode about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8&feature=emb_titl...
  - dhosek 7y ago
    Thanks, I was going to dig up the link until I saw your post.
- m-watson 7y ago
  There may be a level of lobbying involved but I would also say websites like recreation are consumer facing, the weather data is used by actual researchers and practitioners. Layouts become a lot more sticky and efficient when people like that are your target.
- farnsworth 7y ago
  An interesting story is when Trump nominated the CEO of Accuweather to be the head of NOAA. This is someone who would have benefited from keeping NOAA and the National Weather Service from doing their jobs. Typically the head of NOAA is a scientist, not a businessman with obvious conflicts of interest. Fortunately, it didn't stick. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/12/trump-noaa-chief-accuweather-barry-myers-243735 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/12/trump-noaa-chief-a...
txcwpalpha 7y ago
Dark Sky (formerly forecast.io)'s entire point was that they, unlike most weather apps, aren't just a prettified version of publicly available weather data. Dark Sky's selling point was that they also used crowdsourced data, including user reports of rain and IIRC data from app user's sensors in their phones, to predict "hyperlocal" weather. I use Dark Sky and it is typically much much more accurate than other weather apps when it comes to heads up of inclement weather coming in the next ~hour, and I'm very sad to see Apple killing it.
- uoaei 7y ago
  On the other hand, if they integrate it into iOS's default weather app, that would open up a whole trove of walking sensors. And potentially make it the most accurate forecasting service by far.
  - seppin 7y ago
    More data for the big company to store on you. Damn it.
  - viklove 7y ago
    But closed off and only accessible if you buy Apple devices. So this is yet another example of a private corporation taking a useful, accessible resource that people rely on, and gating it behind their own services so they can extract rent. God I love capitalism!
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Dark Skies was already a private company....
      - notthemessiah 7y ago
        They at provided an API and web interface, one that you could use to get forecasts on any device, the data can be presented in any format. They're closing the website and the API, so you only will get the hyperlocal forecast from an Apple device, and only by Apple's UI choices. Closing off services behind a walled garden and charging an entrance fee is Apple's business model.
jazzyjackson 7y ago
I was about to ask if anyone knows a decent API to build my own product off of, and I found out weather.gov has an API available without requiring a key for now, they just ask that you include contact information in your user agent so they don't accidentally block you. https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api

by joncp 7y ago

toomuchtodo 7y ago

More importantly, this should be protected and demanded to be expanded upon by citizens. No one can acquire and shut down the National Weather Service, nor any apps they develop with public money released to the public domain. Protect public goods.

big_chungus 7y ago
Dark sky is not a public good, it's a for-profit business that puts a shiny interface on the same information available to everyone. It also added user reporting and analytics, so added material value. The app cost money. Why don't you lobby your congressman to have NOAA develop a better app instead? You can't make a privately-developed program a "public good"; citizens can't just "demand" that dark sky remains independent and expands because they didn't pay for it. Either lobby the government for a better app, wait for the private sector to develop a better app, or lobby the government to attach a license to the data prohibiting commercial use (though this would kill the other apps, too).
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  You might re-read my comment. Nowhere do I say Dark Sky is a public good. I do lobby my congressperson for NOAA to have more open data practices and better funding for app development. Citizens can demand products from government be at parity or better than private corporation products, and government has the funding to do it. So why not do it?
  - big_chungus 7y ago
    I'll note that you edited your comment after I posted my reply, and are now making it sound like you didn't. It originally included something to the effect of, "This shouldn't be allowed to happen."
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I made no such edit, and at no time made such a statement. I take no issue with Dark Sky being acquired (EDIT:) and my comment is only to vocally advocate for government-run services that cannot be acquired (to provide continuity of quality service and delivery of data products to citizens and the systems and apps they use to consume said services and data products).

dstaley 7y ago

My primary use of the Dark Sky API is for minute-by-minute forecasts. I've yet to find another API that can answer the question "Do I have enough time to walk my dog before it starts raining?"

abrowne 7y ago
Same here, for the website. I actually find their forecasts beyond a few hours pretty bad¹, so I use weather.gov, but I haven't found anything as good at telling me whether it will rain in the next 20 minutes. 1: Both seemly wrong more often and more importantly unclear whether they mean a greater or lesser chance or amount of rain or snow, which makes a big difference when you are, say, biking to work.
- dstaley 7y ago
  If you're not consuming the API, AccuWeather's MinuteCast is pretty nice!
  - abrowne 7y ago
    Thanks, it does look like a good replacement.
airstrike 7y ago
AccuWeather has MinuteCast which does the same thing
SirLuxuryYacht 7y ago
My go-to for this is an app called Radar Scope [0], which is the best $10 I've ever spent on an app. Its very easy to pull it up and look at the radar products with a useful color scale (as opposed to others which make light showers look like the apocalypse). Based on the quality I assume its target market is for stormchasers and weather professionals. Its fast and has most of the radar products, including velocities. I originally bought it to answer the question "Should I shelter from this tornado?" The downside is that there is no forecasting, but thats freely available through the NWS [1]. Not affiliated, just stoked. [0] https://www.radarscope.app/ https://www.radarscope.app/ [1] https://www.weather.gov/ https://www.weather.gov/

TheAdamAndChe 7y ago

https://mobile.weather.gov https://mobile.weather.gov is a good one for mobile devices.

m-p-3 7y ago
And the equivalent for Canadians https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.gc.ec.weather_app_android.ops https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.gc.ec.weath... https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/id1334221563 https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/id1334221563
- Marsymars 7y ago
  The Environment Canada forecasts are my preferred data source for weather, but the app desperately needs UI polish.

maliker 7y ago

Ain't pretty matches my experience. My team pulls a lot of weather data for utility engineering work we do, and the NOAA APIs have proven very hard to navigate. Some data only available via FTP, lots of different weather station networks with different metrics (e.g. lots of variety in the cloud/irradiance data). Darksky provided a nice clean interface, but I guess we'll go back to cobbling things together directly from NOAA.

RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
Pretty much the same for me. What a disappointment.
thisisbrians 7y ago
Any clue how hard it would be to create an open-source alternative to the DarkSky API? My company needs one, too. Maybe we could band forces and organize an open-source alternative. I know it won't be as good, but I'm curious what other people in our position think...
- maliker 7y ago
  We'd be interested! I think it will be pretty hard to do well in open source though. Server costs and keeping things working when NOAA (etc.) sources change is probably going to be expensive.
  - stephenr 7y ago
    If it’s open source there’s no specific requirement for the project to provide a hosted instance. Develop the (Ideally extensible) logic to parse a given government funded weather source into a common format, and have “API consumers” run their own instance of services (or set them up an instance for $ and use the profits to help with project costs).
    - SiVal 7y ago
      Not disagreeing, just extending. Dark Sky merges multiple weather data sources, even in a single country, and I use it for a private app that deals with weather all around the world. An open source project could just be code, not a service, but that code should have a config where you specified which sources to fetch and how often instead of choosing "a given govt-funded weather source".

starpilot 7y ago

These forecasts are based on the GFS, which has finite resolution at 9-km I think, so the "point forecasts" you get from weather.gov are limited by that.

ryandvm 7y ago

> It ain't pretty, but it works and you've already paid for it. I've been following the public weather data scene for a long time and I'm pretty sure that UX for all the NOAA/NWS web sites is horrible by design, so to speak. After all, there are plenty of well designed .gov sites (e.g. https://recreation.gov/ https://recreation.gov/), but just try browsing around weather.gov for a few minutes. It's horrible. I mean, the data is top-notch and it technically works, but the experience is awful. Weather.gov has had the exact same site for at least a decade. This is completely speculative, but I would not be surprised to find a link between campaign contributions from the likes of the The Weather Channel and the decision to completely underfund the web development teams at NWS. Nothing else explains why some of the United States most valuable public data is presented on a web site barely more functional than Craigslist.

liyanage 7y ago
> I'm pretty sure that UX for all the NOAA/NWS web sites is horrible by design That's spot on, John Oliver did a whole episode about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8&feature=emb_titl...
- dhosek 7y ago
  Thanks, I was going to dig up the link until I saw your post.
m-watson 7y ago
There may be a level of lobbying involved but I would also say websites like recreation are consumer facing, the weather data is used by actual researchers and practitioners. Layouts become a lot more sticky and efficient when people like that are your target.
farnsworth 7y ago
An interesting story is when Trump nominated the CEO of Accuweather to be the head of NOAA. This is someone who would have benefited from keeping NOAA and the National Weather Service from doing their jobs. Typically the head of NOAA is a scientist, not a businessman with obvious conflicts of interest. Fortunately, it didn't stick. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/12/trump-noaa-chief-accuweather-barry-myers-243735 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/12/trump-noaa-chief-a...

txcwpalpha 7y ago

Dark Sky (formerly forecast.io)'s entire point was that they, unlike most weather apps, aren't just a prettified version of publicly available weather data. Dark Sky's selling point was that they also used crowdsourced data, including user reports of rain and IIRC data from app user's sensors in their phones, to predict "hyperlocal" weather. I use Dark Sky and it is typically much much more accurate than other weather apps when it comes to heads up of inclement weather coming in the next ~hour, and I'm very sad to see Apple killing it.

uoaei 7y ago
On the other hand, if they integrate it into iOS's default weather app, that would open up a whole trove of walking sensors. And potentially make it the most accurate forecasting service by far.
- seppin 7y ago
  More data for the big company to store on you. Damn it.
- viklove 7y ago
  But closed off and only accessible if you buy Apple devices. So this is yet another example of a private corporation taking a useful, accessible resource that people rely on, and gating it behind their own services so they can extract rent. God I love capitalism!
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Dark Skies was already a private company....
    - notthemessiah 7y ago
      They at provided an API and web interface, one that you could use to get forecasts on any device, the data can be presented in any format. They're closing the website and the API, so you only will get the hyperlocal forecast from an Apple device, and only by Apple's UI choices. Closing off services behind a walled garden and charging an entrance fee is Apple's business model.

jazzyjackson 7y ago

I was about to ask if anyone knows a decent API to build my own product off of, and I found out weather.gov has an API available without requiring a key for now, they just ask that you include contact information in your user agent so they don't accidentally block you. https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api