5 ms·

Weather in Google Maps

75 points by chrismealy 15y ago

mrinterweb 15y ago
This is a very nice feature, but I think I still prefer http://www.wunderground.com/auto/wxmap/ http://www.wunderground.com/auto/wxmap/ This page also has the ability to see where percipitation is currently. I find that this helps with my bike commute in Portland frequently.
- bjg 15y ago
  Also reachable at http://fullscreenweather.com http://fullscreenweather.com
hammock 15y ago
Why did it take so long to do this? (Don't get me wrong, I think it's great and I guess I hadnt thought of it) Also the next obvious step would be to add doppler radar and satellite cloud coverage, not just pictures of suns and moons everywhere.
- ballpark 15y ago
  I zoomed out, and was able to see clouds.
pavel_lishin 15y ago
What I'd really like is a weather API - I just spent 2 hours looking into a decent one to use. (The National Weather Service doesn't seem to report the current temperature. :/)
- ac3522 15y ago
  I still haven't been able to find an API to get yesterday's weather. I've been trying to make a site that doesn't show straight up temperature but a percentage based on known value (yesterday's temp). For current conditions, you could try YQL, but I'm not sure if it's really current. (A good article: http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2009/12/extending_the_weather_api_with_yql/ http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2009/12/extending...) The NOAA service (http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/xml/rest.php http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/xml/rest.php) that I've used before just does time series, so you might be able to get the most recent time, but you're right, I haven't been able to find a NOAA API for current data.
- jcurbo 15y ago
  Maybe Weather Underground? http://wiki.wunderground.com/index.php/API_-_XML http://wiki.wunderground.com/index.php/API_-_XML looks decent. I use their regular pages all the time.
yellowbkpk 15y ago
I invite you all to try out the website for the weather company I work for: http://preview.my-cast.com/ http://preview.my-cast.com/ I think the animated radar map is the best I've seen among all contenders (wunderground, weather channel, and now the google weather offering).
- 51Cards 15y ago
  You may want to see this one for comparison as well: http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/maps/on_toronto/caon0696?ref=qlink_obs_radar http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/maps/on_toronto/cao...
- thomasgerbe 15y ago
  Too bad it doesn't work outside the U.S. (which wunderground, weather channel, and google weather) all do.
masonhensley 15y ago
The thing about weather sites is that they usually overwhelm users with information. 80%+ of the time, a user wants to know, will i need a coat or umbrella today? Or the general temperature. Thankfully, the weather channel has cleaned up forecasts (was once a huge mess): http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/37202 http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/37202 Love this site: http://www.thefuckingweather.com/ http://www.thefuckingweather.com/ I hope google make this available in their api as an overlay, I think my users would love it.
- ac3522 15y ago
  I totally agree with the information overload. I usually use http://weather.ericson.net/ http://weather.ericson.net/
- wensing 15y ago
  Have you seen Stormpulse? Our goal is to eliminate information overload even when the weather gets nasty.
wensing 15y ago
Have been waiting for this since early 2005. Now I wonder when they'll take a stab at severe weather.
- wensing 15y ago
  My educated guess is years from now if ever. There's no worldwide severe weather dataset, so any foray into that market would look half-baked or worse, biased towards first-world countries (ie nations with good metereological data).
awj 15y ago
It's interesting to see they're pre-rendering the composition of the weather layer on top of their regular map. Where I work we have our own styled map tiles and probably would do a layer of transparent cloud tiles over our (unmodified) regular tiles. It just takes too long to re-render deeper scales. That said, if I was serving up as many tiles as google does, I'd go for it this way too. You already need a buttload of resources just to handle the request volume, might as well exploit that to save the user on download time and yourself on bandwidth.
- wensing 15y ago
  At Stormpulse we also bake the cloud layer into the base tiles.

75 points by chrismealy 15y ago

This is a very nice feature, but I think I still prefer http://www.wunderground.com/auto/wxmap/ http://www.wunderground.com/auto/wxmap/ This page also has the ability to see where percipitation is currently. I find that this helps with my bike commute in Portland frequently.

bjg 15y ago
Also reachable at http://fullscreenweather.com http://fullscreenweather.com

hammock 15y ago

Why did it take so long to do this? (Don't get me wrong, I think it's great and I guess I hadnt thought of it) Also the next obvious step would be to add doppler radar and satellite cloud coverage, not just pictures of suns and moons everywhere.

ballpark 15y ago
I zoomed out, and was able to see clouds.

pavel_lishin 15y ago

What I'd really like is a weather API - I just spent 2 hours looking into a decent one to use. (The National Weather Service doesn't seem to report the current temperature. :/)

ac3522 15y ago
I still haven't been able to find an API to get yesterday's weather. I've been trying to make a site that doesn't show straight up temperature but a percentage based on known value (yesterday's temp). For current conditions, you could try YQL, but I'm not sure if it's really current. (A good article: http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2009/12/extending_the_weather_api_with_yql/ http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2009/12/extending...) The NOAA service (http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/xml/rest.php http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/xml/rest.php) that I've used before just does time series, so you might be able to get the most recent time, but you're right, I haven't been able to find a NOAA API for current data.
jcurbo 15y ago
Maybe Weather Underground? http://wiki.wunderground.com/index.php/API_-_XML http://wiki.wunderground.com/index.php/API_-_XML looks decent. I use their regular pages all the time.

yellowbkpk 15y ago

I invite you all to try out the website for the weather company I work for: http://preview.my-cast.com/ http://preview.my-cast.com/ I think the animated radar map is the best I've seen among all contenders (wunderground, weather channel, and now the google weather offering).

51Cards 15y ago
You may want to see this one for comparison as well: http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/maps/on_toronto/caon0696?ref=qlink_obs_radar http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/maps/on_toronto/cao...
thomasgerbe 15y ago
Too bad it doesn't work outside the U.S. (which wunderground, weather channel, and google weather) all do.

masonhensley 15y ago

The thing about weather sites is that they usually overwhelm users with information. 80%+ of the time, a user wants to know, will i need a coat or umbrella today? Or the general temperature. Thankfully, the weather channel has cleaned up forecasts (was once a huge mess): http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/37202 http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/37202 Love this site: http://www.thefuckingweather.com/ http://www.thefuckingweather.com/ I hope google make this available in their api as an overlay, I think my users would love it.

ac3522 15y ago
I totally agree with the information overload. I usually use http://weather.ericson.net/ http://weather.ericson.net/
wensing 15y ago
Have you seen Stormpulse? Our goal is to eliminate information overload even when the weather gets nasty.

wensing 15y ago

Have been waiting for this since early 2005. Now I wonder when they'll take a stab at severe weather.

wensing 15y ago
My educated guess is years from now if ever. There's no worldwide severe weather dataset, so any foray into that market would look half-baked or worse, biased towards first-world countries (ie nations with good metereological data).

awj 15y ago

It's interesting to see they're pre-rendering the composition of the weather layer on top of their regular map. Where I work we have our own styled map tiles and probably would do a layer of transparent cloud tiles over our (unmodified) regular tiles. It just takes too long to re-render deeper scales. That said, if I was serving up as many tiles as google does, I'd go for it this way too. You already need a buttload of resources just to handle the request volume, might as well exploit that to save the user on download time and yourself on bandwidth.

wensing 15y ago
At Stormpulse we also bake the cloud layer into the base tiles.