5 ms·

Personal Weather Station Network

28 points by vincent_s 6y ago

notatoad 6y ago
"Weather Underground is owned by The Weather Company, a subsidiary of IBM." i like the idea, but contributing data to a private organization that sells it as a commercial product and doesn't offer you anything in return seems like a poor choice. This would be a lot more interesting if it were something like the openstreetmap model where all the data was available for public benefit.
- santoshalper 6y ago
  Agreed. I have no problem with companies engaging their community this way, but the right thing to do is to openly share what is contributed.
- dr_kiszonka 6y ago
  The fact they are owned by IBM is quite ironic given the original Weather Underground: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground
monkeypizza 6y ago
Because most weather sites get their temperature readings from the nearest airport, there is often a big gap between that and the temperatures actually experienced by most people there. Here's the map that has actual locally sampled temperatures for the SF peninsula: https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap?lat=37.785&lon=-122.422 https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap?lat=37.785&lon=-122.4...
LeoPanthera 6y ago
I was willing to give my data to this - until they closed their API for third party weather apps. I don't see why I should be willing to give up my weather data if I cannot get it back again. Some alternatives you can connect your weather station to: PWS Weather: https://www.pwsweather.com https://www.pwsweather.com Citizen Weather Observer Program: http://www.wxqa.com http://www.wxqa.com UK Met Office: https://wow.metoffice.gov.uk https://wow.metoffice.gov.uk Automatic Weather Map System: https://www.awekas.at/wp/?lang=en https://www.awekas.at/wp/?lang=en
- gavin_gee 6y ago
  so which would you pick?
  - LeoPanthera 6y ago
    I run WeeWx locally, which can upload to any, or all, of them. You don't have to pick just one.
- kraig 6y ago
  thoughts on https://ambientweather.net https://ambientweather.net?
  - dano 6y ago
    I replaced a La Crosse station that would only upload to Wunderground with an Ambient Weather 2902B station. The new station was a heck of a lot easier to setup than the La Crosse and now I can get my data back. Ambientweather.net also allows for integrations to multiple other companies, including wunderground, and is generous with their API. +1 ambientweather.net
- zantana 6y ago
  PWS Weather looks good, but I don't see if you can query it, specifically from Home Assistant. I've been looking for a decent replacement since Apple bought DarkSky.
themark 6y ago
Ive been sending them data for almost 15 years. It sucked to open the app one day and be served an ad for premium paid features.
BrandoElFollito 6y ago
I use the API from netatmo which gives access to a surprisingly large amount of stations, at least in my place (about 20 in a radius of a km) https://dev.netatmo.com/ https://dev.netatmo.com/
- danielfoster 6y ago
  So you like your Netatmo? Been looking at it but have read mixed reviews.
  - BrandoElFollito 6y ago
    I do not have one, I just use the measurements of the ones around me to have a good estimation of the temperature to display on my home dashboard. I reject the extreme ones, average and get more that I could have with my own single measurement.
  - ping_pong 6y ago
    I have one for years but I just shut it down a few weeks ago. Mostly useless. I'm thinking of getting a Weatherflow Tempest when some more reviews come in. My main goal is for a weather station that has easy access to its data and accurate wind measurement, including bursts. Downloading data was annoying, and the Netatmo Windmeter was incredibly coarse almost to the point of being useless.
    - danielfoster 6y ago
      Thanks! I’ll look into the Tempest. Always wanted a home weather station since I was a kid.
jeffrogers 6y ago
And IBM has been selling the data from these weather apps for a long time. I wouldn’t want to be a part of this: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/technology/weather-channel-app-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/technology/weather-channe...
hadlock 6y ago
Wunderground was an amazing, amazing website from when it first started, in the late 1990s, through about ~2012 when it was sold to The Weather Channel, and all the sterotypical corporate buyout things that happened afterwards. The UI was completely rewritten, from an information dense, fast, easy to use interface that had grown organically as the NWS put more and more data online, to the "web 2.0" interface with gobs of white space, information removed or placed in hard-to-find areas, and the UI performance is less than one-fifth of what it was previously, even on modern computers with fast connections. It is a pale imitation of what it once was. To their credit, you could still access weather underground "classic" by browsing to classic.wunderground.com, but in 2015 they finally shut that site down, shortly before selling it to IBM. Wunderground has only gone downhill since being bought out by IBM Wunderground was an amazing website, the classic version is still the best weather website that the internet has ever had, but it's gone now, and the shambling corpse that still remains does not deserve any praise it gets at this point. It's long been about halfway down my list to write a fully open source clone of classic wunderground, but I probably won't get to it this year. I have a bunch of screenshots/rendered CSS etc as source material if anyone is interested in taking this on.
- hackersword 6y ago
  I would love to see the original 5-10 day graph that you could click to single day (and shown as a graph). Currently if you click on their weekly graph, it presents the hourly for a day as a table. WTF would they remove functionality???
bingdig 6y ago
Weather Underground has a questionable track record with respect to foreclosing public access to weather data. Leadership at both the Weather Company and Accuweather are good friends with Trump. Shortly after Trump appointed Barry Myers head of NOAA (former CEO of Accuweather), NOAA dramatically curtailed its public data access in lieu of exclusive access to large companies like Weather Underground. For more on this, check out Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk.
arm85 6y ago
Ah, this is a really useful topic, following on from the previous post about DIY weatherstations. I'm currently adding my data to wunderground, but I'm not getting a huge amount of value out of it. Really happy to see other options.

28 points by vincent_s 6y ago

"Weather Underground is owned by The Weather Company, a subsidiary of IBM." i like the idea, but contributing data to a private organization that sells it as a commercial product and doesn't offer you anything in return seems like a poor choice. This would be a lot more interesting if it were something like the openstreetmap model where all the data was available for public benefit.

santoshalper 6y ago
Agreed. I have no problem with companies engaging their community this way, but the right thing to do is to openly share what is contributed.
dr_kiszonka 6y ago
The fact they are owned by IBM is quite ironic given the original Weather Underground: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground

monkeypizza 6y ago

Because most weather sites get their temperature readings from the nearest airport, there is often a big gap between that and the temperatures actually experienced by most people there. Here's the map that has actual locally sampled temperatures for the SF peninsula: https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap?lat=37.785&lon=-122.422 https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap?lat=37.785&lon=-122.4...

LeoPanthera 6y ago

I was willing to give my data to this - until they closed their API for third party weather apps. I don't see why I should be willing to give up my weather data if I cannot get it back again. Some alternatives you can connect your weather station to: PWS Weather: https://www.pwsweather.com https://www.pwsweather.com Citizen Weather Observer Program: http://www.wxqa.com http://www.wxqa.com UK Met Office: https://wow.metoffice.gov.uk https://wow.metoffice.gov.uk Automatic Weather Map System: https://www.awekas.at/wp/?lang=en https://www.awekas.at/wp/?lang=en

gavin_gee 6y ago
so which would you pick?
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  I run WeeWx locally, which can upload to any, or all, of them. You don't have to pick just one.
kraig 6y ago
thoughts on https://ambientweather.net https://ambientweather.net?
- dano 6y ago
  I replaced a La Crosse station that would only upload to Wunderground with an Ambient Weather 2902B station. The new station was a heck of a lot easier to setup than the La Crosse and now I can get my data back. Ambientweather.net also allows for integrations to multiple other companies, including wunderground, and is generous with their API. +1 ambientweather.net
zantana 6y ago
PWS Weather looks good, but I don't see if you can query it, specifically from Home Assistant. I've been looking for a decent replacement since Apple bought DarkSky.

themark 6y ago

Ive been sending them data for almost 15 years. It sucked to open the app one day and be served an ad for premium paid features.

BrandoElFollito 6y ago

I use the API from netatmo which gives access to a surprisingly large amount of stations, at least in my place (about 20 in a radius of a km) https://dev.netatmo.com/ https://dev.netatmo.com/

danielfoster 6y ago
So you like your Netatmo? Been looking at it but have read mixed reviews.
- BrandoElFollito 6y ago
  I do not have one, I just use the measurements of the ones around me to have a good estimation of the temperature to display on my home dashboard. I reject the extreme ones, average and get more that I could have with my own single measurement.
- ping_pong 6y ago
  I have one for years but I just shut it down a few weeks ago. Mostly useless. I'm thinking of getting a Weatherflow Tempest when some more reviews come in. My main goal is for a weather station that has easy access to its data and accurate wind measurement, including bursts. Downloading data was annoying, and the Netatmo Windmeter was incredibly coarse almost to the point of being useless.
  - danielfoster 6y ago
    Thanks! I’ll look into the Tempest. Always wanted a home weather station since I was a kid.

jeffrogers 6y ago

And IBM has been selling the data from these weather apps for a long time. I wouldn’t want to be a part of this: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/technology/weather-channel-app-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/technology/weather-channe...

hadlock 6y ago

Wunderground was an amazing, amazing website from when it first started, in the late 1990s, through about ~2012 when it was sold to The Weather Channel, and all the sterotypical corporate buyout things that happened afterwards. The UI was completely rewritten, from an information dense, fast, easy to use interface that had grown organically as the NWS put more and more data online, to the "web 2.0" interface with gobs of white space, information removed or placed in hard-to-find areas, and the UI performance is less than one-fifth of what it was previously, even on modern computers with fast connections. It is a pale imitation of what it once was. To their credit, you could still access weather underground "classic" by browsing to classic.wunderground.com, but in 2015 they finally shut that site down, shortly before selling it to IBM. Wunderground has only gone downhill since being bought out by IBM Wunderground was an amazing website, the classic version is still the best weather website that the internet has ever had, but it's gone now, and the shambling corpse that still remains does not deserve any praise it gets at this point. It's long been about halfway down my list to write a fully open source clone of classic wunderground, but I probably won't get to it this year. I have a bunch of screenshots/rendered CSS etc as source material if anyone is interested in taking this on.

hackersword 6y ago
I would love to see the original 5-10 day graph that you could click to single day (and shown as a graph). Currently if you click on their weekly graph, it presents the hourly for a day as a table. WTF would they remove functionality???

bingdig 6y ago

Weather Underground has a questionable track record with respect to foreclosing public access to weather data. Leadership at both the Weather Company and Accuweather are good friends with Trump. Shortly after Trump appointed Barry Myers head of NOAA (former CEO of Accuweather), NOAA dramatically curtailed its public data access in lieu of exclusive access to large companies like Weather Underground. For more on this, check out Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk.

arm85 6y ago

Ah, this is a really useful topic, following on from the previous post about DIY weatherstations. I'm currently adding my data to wunderground, but I'm not getting a huge amount of value out of it. Really happy to see other options.