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Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

weatherspark.com

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Re: Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

#11

Post by jacobn »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

Congratulations on the new thing! I've loved Weatherspark ever since y'all were doing very innovative presentation back in 2013 or so. One suggestion; have you tried re-centering Southern hemisphere calendars so summer is still in the middle? The "red dot in the middle" is such a clear pattern, no reason you couldn't have it in Australia too.

We've talked about it, but so far no, it messes with the x-axis a little too much (averages, history, compare, everything needs to work & line up across both time & northern/southern hemisphere, and what graph has two x-axes anyway!? ;) and while neat it's a little marginal from a substantive utility perspective?

Re: Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

#12

Post by WmyEE0UsWAwC2i »

jacobn wrote: post #10
mutagen wrote: post #7

I miss the old WeatherSpark visualization of past conditions and the future forecast. They had a wonderful graph of various weather parameters in a nice slippy zoom interface that made it easy to visualize the forecast. It was built in Flash and they decided that a HTML version wasn't viable due to declining ad revenue. Some appreciation and screenshots of the old version: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sad-day-weath…

Yeah, those were good times indeed. I try not to think too much about just how many hours/days/weeks/months I spent writing creatively cached Flash graph drawing to get the silky smooth pan & zoom behavior the dashboard offered. But while lord Google is amazing at indexing SEOd text content, they aren't (weren't?) very good at feeding traffic to a tool with effectively no text. How could they know it was a good way t…

That dashboard was gold. RIP.

Re: Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

#13

Post by gmurphy »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

Congratulations on the new thing! I've loved Weatherspark ever since y'all were doing very innovative presentation back in 2013 or so. One suggestion; have you tried re-centering Southern hemisphere calendars so summer is still in the middle? The "red dot in the middle" is such a clear pattern, no reason you couldn't have it in Australia too.

Double agree with this suggestion - as I've split my life between hemispheres, weatherspark has been enormously useful for explaining relative climates to new and old friends, but I always have to edit the comparison graphs myself to put summer in the middle before sharing so you can actually compare the differences.

Re: Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

#15

Post by jacobn »

gmurphy wrote: post #13
NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

Congratulations on the new thing! I've loved Weatherspark ever since y'all were doing very innovative presentation back in 2013 or so. One suggestion; have you tried re-centering Southern hemisphere calendars so summer is still in the middle? The "red dot in the middle" is such a clear pattern, no reason you couldn't have it in Australia too.

Double agree with this suggestion - as I've split my life between hemispheres, weatherspark has been enormously useful for explaining relative climates to new and old friends, but I always have to edit the comparison graphs myself to put summer in the middle before sharing so you can actually compare the differences.

Hmm... maybe for just the compare pages then? I'll chat with James about it to see what we can do.

(I'm one of the site creators)

Re: Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

#16

Post by floatrock »

jacobn wrote: post #10
mutagen wrote: post #7

I miss the old WeatherSpark visualization of past conditions and the future forecast. They had a wonderful graph of various weather parameters in a nice slippy zoom interface that made it easy to visualize the forecast. It was built in Flash and they decided that a HTML version wasn't viable due to declining ad revenue. Some appreciation and screenshots of the old version: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sad-day-weath…

Yeah, those were good times indeed. I try not to think too much about just how many hours/days/weeks/months I spent writing creatively cached Flash graph drawing to get the silky smooth pan & zoom behavior the dashboard offered. But while lord Google is amazing at indexing SEOd text content, they aren't (weren't?) very good at feeding traffic to a tool with effectively no text. How could they know it was a good way t…

Searching for any recipe shows the same paperclip-maximizing-gone-amok do-not-want SEO trap: I don't care about some made-up story about how this ratatouille makes you think of summers at grandma's garden. That's all empty word-calories best left for the writers at pixar. Something truly revolutionary would be if google ranked recipe sites by higher recipe-to-fluff ratios.

Thanks for developing all the stuff at weatherspark. It's one of my favorite practical examples of compact visualization done right.

Re: Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

#18

Post by dylan604 »

It's sad that official weather reports are centered around airports. I understand why it was easy to choose. Their locations tend to not represent the area of interest to most individuals. Lots of wide open spaces, no trees, etc. Seems like there could be a mobetta way of doing a centralized "official" way, but alas, it is what it is.

I do like the sites that gather/present data on a more granular level from interested parties installing weather gear like local schools, libraries, weather-nerds, etc.

Re: Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

#19

Post by llimllib »

jacobn wrote: post #10
mutagen wrote: post #7

I miss the old WeatherSpark visualization of past conditions and the future forecast. They had a wonderful graph of various weather parameters in a nice slippy zoom interface that made it easy to visualize the forecast. It was built in Flash and they decided that a HTML version wasn't viable due to declining ad revenue. Some appreciation and screenshots of the old version: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sad-day-weath…

Yeah, those were good times indeed. I try not to think too much about just how many hours/days/weeks/months I spent writing creatively cached Flash graph drawing to get the silky smooth pan & zoom behavior the dashboard offered. But while lord Google is amazing at indexing SEOd text content, they aren't (weren't?) very good at feeding traffic to a tool with effectively no text. How could they know it was a good way t…

Thank you so much for that, I miss it terribly but understand that it wasn't worth the effort. It was beautiful while it lasted. (and this map is super cool too)

Re: Show HN: A world map of 24x365 average temperature “fingerprints”

#20

Post by xahrepap »

This reminds me of “Temperature Blankets”. They seem pretty well known in knitting/crocheting world. Typically they’ll do a row or two of a color representing the weather for each day of the year.

My wife made one for the year 2020. It’s really neat looking at it and seeing how the weather fluctuated in and out the days and weeks. I think it would be so cool to have several for different important/notable years… but they can be so much work!

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