4 ms·

Visualising weather reports as a graph

98 points by arb99 15y ago

AndrewDucker 15y ago
I really like the way that the Norwegian site yr.no does this: http://www.yr.no/place/United_States/California/San_Francisco~5391959/hour_by_hour.html http://www.yr.no/place/United_States/California/San_Francisc... Nice and simple, without any fancy Flash/animation going on. Take a look at the "Detailed" view to see pressure and cloud cover on the same graph. Compare the two of them, and I find this much more readable.
- dfc 15y ago
  I like the layout of yr.no better too. Unfortunately it is only in Celsius so not as useful for me...
- bosse 15y ago
  Thanks! I'm a sysadmin at met.no, and will forward your comments to the devs. I found the OP solution interesting in regards to visualizing historical observations. As of now, we have a system seperate from yr.no for that (but I believe it is still accessible from api.met.no).
  - smackay 15y ago
    Great work on the graphics - concise and informative. Coverage in western Europe for wind speed and pressure on the advanced map is limited to the North Sea, and Northeastern Atlantic. Is this due to limited access to the data or because Scandanavians think that it is always sunny and warm in Iberia so the weather is not worth reporting.
    - bosse 15y ago
      Our primary sector is the Northern Atlantic and the North Sea from Faroe Islands/Iceland and up to and including the Arctic. We do those calculations based on observations from several sources (like weather stations, weather balloons and satellite imagery) that we feed into our meteorological and oceanographic models. The stuff we create for our sector are in principle always made public, and you'll see those products on yr.no and on the API. We also retrieve and use observations and products from partner institutions like NOAA (US) and the ECMWF (EU). Some of the partners (mostly national services) do not accept redistribution, so some areas might unfortunately only have basic meteorological and oceanographic data made available on our API. It's amazing how popular yr.no has become. We got word from some South African farmers who said they were using yr.no instead of their national service, as our service was of better use for them. (The distance between Oslo and Johannesburg is 6010 miles.)
- dalys 15y ago
  I also like yr.no and the hour by hour view it provides. As many other Swedes I use it every day. A plus for yr.no is all the free data that is available! Probably the best weather site there is, if you're in a northern Europe country at least. http://om.yr.no/verdata/free-weather-data/ http://om.yr.no/verdata/free-weather-data/
- jacobn 15y ago
  We've got a simplified version that's html-only in the pipeline, should be out "any day now", so do check back. (disclosure: I'm one of the devs on the site)
- CodeMage 15y ago
  I found yr.no visually appealing and easier on the eyes, but I found WeatherSpark more informative. WeatherSpark allows me to put other stuff on the graph, such as humidity. If there's an option to do that at yr.no, I missed. I also prefer being able to see the exact values right there on the graph, instead of having to look them up in a table. Just my personal preferences.
m0tive 15y ago
Loading Google Maps plugin... If you're using HTTPS Everywhere please disable it for GoogleMaps since it makes the authorization request fail. Tools Menu -> Add Ons -> HTTPS Everywhere Options -> Search for 'GoogleMaps' -> Click on the green check mark to turn it into a red x. Is this a problem with the google maps 'plugin' or their implementation?
- jacobn 15y ago
  The authorization request that the google maps flash SDK issues to google fails when it's issued as an https request. The HTTPS everywhere plugin forcibly changes the request type, thereby making it fail. AFAIK there's no way to fix it on our side. (I'm one of the devs on weatherspark)
dfc 15y ago
Previous posts: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2330429 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2330429 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2310535 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2310535 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3094357 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3094357
farico 15y ago
Would be cool if you changed Europe/Vilnius shortcut to Lithuania with capital Vilnius and not Vilniusstrasse in Austria :) http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Europe/Vilnius http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Europe/Vilnius suggesting to replace it with: http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;ws=29009 http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;ws=29009 By the way I really like viewing weather as graph! Nicely done.
- jacobn 15y ago
  Yes, yahoo's geocoding is not perfect... Searching for just "Vilnius" does the right thing though, and takes you to: http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Republic_of_Lithuania/Vilnius http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Republic_of_Lithuania/... (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)
forgottenpaswrd 15y ago
I like it.
Urgo 15y ago
Just to throw this out there, most of this is already presented directly by the National Weather Service: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.73285&lon=-78.69814&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=graphical http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.73285&lo...
- jacobn 15y ago
  ... and most computer languages are turing equivalent, yet people prefer different ones ;) Seriously, yes, all the data is freely available in some combination of text and graphics on the internets - the pitch here is the presentation, aggregation and ease of exploration. (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)
seqastian 15y ago
flash? try again please.
- SonicSoul 15y ago
  if it's not HTML5 you're not interested?
- jacobn 15y ago
  I hear you about flash, HTML-only "simple forecast" is in the pipeline, so do check back. (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)
costacoast 15y ago
I use this service all the time since I found out about it last year (on HN) because it gives me more information than I will ever need and still makes it easy to consume. The most unique aspect of this implementation is the historical data they provide to give you an idea of weather even when there is no forecast. This is unbelievably valuable when planning a trip to a new region of the world and I routinely use it to plot my locations and timing accordingly. The only real problem I have with this site is the heavy dependence on flash, and a few clunky UI controls when interacting with the graph over a long period of time.
- jacobn 15y ago
  We recently added some very simple keyboard controls: the arrow keys (left-right: pan, up-down: zoom), that might alleviate that problem a little. Yes, you need to click in the app once to give it focus before it registers the keyboard clicks. Just one of the many little gotchas with flash... (don't get me started ;) (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)
meanderingleaf 15y ago
Very cool, wish I had known about this before I built my own. Of course, building my own let me tailor it to the data and style I wanted (http://dustytome.net/demos/widg/ http://dustytome.net/demos/widg/). As a side note: is there any place to get free(ish) weather forecasts? I've been using Wunderground's API (which is nice), but I don't see any way to let multiple people use it without shelling out more money than I can justify at the moment.
- jacobn 15y ago
  NOAA has an api ( http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=San+Francisco&state=CA&site=MTR&textField1=37.775&textField2=-122.418&e=0 http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=San+Franci... click on the red XML button down right on the page) As someone else mentioned, so does api.met.no (they power yr.no). World Weather Online and Weather Central are commercial offerings, but reasonably priced. (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)
lcm133 15y ago
Very similar to the My-Cast Weather app in horizontal orientation.
achanlon 15y ago
I really wish the terms 'chart' and 'graph' were not used synonymously.

98 points by arb99 15y ago

I really like the way that the Norwegian site yr.no does this: http://www.yr.no/place/United_States/California/San_Francisco~5391959/hour_by_hour.html http://www.yr.no/place/United_States/California/San_Francisc... Nice and simple, without any fancy Flash/animation going on. Take a look at the "Detailed" view to see pressure and cloud cover on the same graph. Compare the two of them, and I find this much more readable.

dfc 15y ago
I like the layout of yr.no better too. Unfortunately it is only in Celsius so not as useful for me...
bosse 15y ago
Thanks! I'm a sysadmin at met.no, and will forward your comments to the devs. I found the OP solution interesting in regards to visualizing historical observations. As of now, we have a system seperate from yr.no for that (but I believe it is still accessible from api.met.no).
- smackay 15y ago
  Great work on the graphics - concise and informative. Coverage in western Europe for wind speed and pressure on the advanced map is limited to the North Sea, and Northeastern Atlantic. Is this due to limited access to the data or because Scandanavians think that it is always sunny and warm in Iberia so the weather is not worth reporting.
  - bosse 15y ago
    Our primary sector is the Northern Atlantic and the North Sea from Faroe Islands/Iceland and up to and including the Arctic. We do those calculations based on observations from several sources (like weather stations, weather balloons and satellite imagery) that we feed into our meteorological and oceanographic models. The stuff we create for our sector are in principle always made public, and you'll see those products on yr.no and on the API. We also retrieve and use observations and products from partner institutions like NOAA (US) and the ECMWF (EU). Some of the partners (mostly national services) do not accept redistribution, so some areas might unfortunately only have basic meteorological and oceanographic data made available on our API. It's amazing how popular yr.no has become. We got word from some South African farmers who said they were using yr.no instead of their national service, as our service was of better use for them. (The distance between Oslo and Johannesburg is 6010 miles.)
dalys 15y ago
I also like yr.no and the hour by hour view it provides. As many other Swedes I use it every day. A plus for yr.no is all the free data that is available! Probably the best weather site there is, if you're in a northern Europe country at least. http://om.yr.no/verdata/free-weather-data/ http://om.yr.no/verdata/free-weather-data/
jacobn 15y ago
We've got a simplified version that's html-only in the pipeline, should be out "any day now", so do check back. (disclosure: I'm one of the devs on the site)
CodeMage 15y ago
I found yr.no visually appealing and easier on the eyes, but I found WeatherSpark more informative. WeatherSpark allows me to put other stuff on the graph, such as humidity. If there's an option to do that at yr.no, I missed. I also prefer being able to see the exact values right there on the graph, instead of having to look them up in a table. Just my personal preferences.

m0tive 15y ago

Loading Google Maps plugin... If you're using HTTPS Everywhere please disable it for GoogleMaps since it makes the authorization request fail. Tools Menu -> Add Ons -> HTTPS Everywhere Options -> Search for 'GoogleMaps' -> Click on the green check mark to turn it into a red x. Is this a problem with the google maps 'plugin' or their implementation?

jacobn 15y ago
The authorization request that the google maps flash SDK issues to google fails when it's issued as an https request. The HTTPS everywhere plugin forcibly changes the request type, thereby making it fail. AFAIK there's no way to fix it on our side. (I'm one of the devs on weatherspark)

dfc 15y ago

Previous posts: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2330429 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2330429 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2310535 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2310535 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3094357 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3094357

farico 15y ago

Would be cool if you changed Europe/Vilnius shortcut to Lithuania with capital Vilnius and not Vilniusstrasse in Austria :) http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Europe/Vilnius http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Europe/Vilnius suggesting to replace it with: http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;ws=29009 http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;ws=29009 By the way I really like viewing weather as graph! Nicely done.

jacobn 15y ago
Yes, yahoo's geocoding is not perfect... Searching for just "Vilnius" does the right thing though, and takes you to: http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Republic_of_Lithuania/Vilnius http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;a=Republic_of_Lithuania/... (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)

forgottenpaswrd 15y ago

I like it.

Urgo 15y ago

Just to throw this out there, most of this is already presented directly by the National Weather Service: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.73285&lon=-78.69814&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=graphical http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.73285&lo...

jacobn 15y ago
... and most computer languages are turing equivalent, yet people prefer different ones ;) Seriously, yes, all the data is freely available in some combination of text and graphics on the internets - the pitch here is the presentation, aggregation and ease of exploration. (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)

seqastian 15y ago

flash? try again please.

SonicSoul 15y ago
if it's not HTML5 you're not interested?
jacobn 15y ago
I hear you about flash, HTML-only "simple forecast" is in the pipeline, so do check back. (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)

costacoast 15y ago

I use this service all the time since I found out about it last year (on HN) because it gives me more information than I will ever need and still makes it easy to consume. The most unique aspect of this implementation is the historical data they provide to give you an idea of weather even when there is no forecast. This is unbelievably valuable when planning a trip to a new region of the world and I routinely use it to plot my locations and timing accordingly. The only real problem I have with this site is the heavy dependence on flash, and a few clunky UI controls when interacting with the graph over a long period of time.

jacobn 15y ago
We recently added some very simple keyboard controls: the arrow keys (left-right: pan, up-down: zoom), that might alleviate that problem a little. Yes, you need to click in the app once to give it focus before it registers the keyboard clicks. Just one of the many little gotchas with flash... (don't get me started ;) (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)

meanderingleaf 15y ago

Very cool, wish I had known about this before I built my own. Of course, building my own let me tailor it to the data and style I wanted (http://dustytome.net/demos/widg/ http://dustytome.net/demos/widg/). As a side note: is there any place to get free(ish) weather forecasts? I've been using Wunderground's API (which is nice), but I don't see any way to let multiple people use it without shelling out more money than I can justify at the moment.

jacobn 15y ago
NOAA has an api ( http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=San+Francisco&state=CA&site=MTR&textField1=37.775&textField2=-122.418&e=0 http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=San+Franci... click on the red XML button down right on the page) As someone else mentioned, so does api.met.no (they power yr.no). World Weather Online and Weather Central are commercial offerings, but reasonably priced. (disclosure: I'm one of the weatherspark devs)

lcm133 15y ago

Very similar to the My-Cast Weather app in horizontal orientation.

achanlon 15y ago

I really wish the terms 'chart' and 'graph' were not used synonymously.