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Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

pirateweather.net

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Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#112

As an Australian, my main issue with almost all Weather API's and services is that the data is almost always sub-par to the weather data provided by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). It would be great if there was a backend provider concept, so that I could tell my devices (such as an iPhone) to only use BOM data for it's inbuilt widgets.

It’s truly maddening as an Aussie. How many apps just ignore the BoM? I expected the Apple one not to, but it does. It’s frustrating when friends visit me and check the weather on their phone and the data for the Google and Apple apps is so bad. I use Willy weather that uses bom. I don’t love it though. Any recommendations? I personally can’t stand the actual BoM app as an iPhone user but I appreciate that they tried…

I wonder if this isn't the same all over? In Sweden we also have a local metrology bureu which produces much better forecasts than most others. As I understand it they basically tweak the global models with .. sort of local "knowledge". And there are many such models, a few EU-specific and, I assume, one local for most countries.

Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#113

As an Australian, my main issue with almost all Weather API's and services is that the data is almost always sub-par to the weather data provided by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). It would be great if there was a backend provider concept, so that I could tell my devices (such as an iPhone) to only use BOM data for it's inbuilt widgets.

It’s truly maddening as an Aussie. How many apps just ignore the BoM? I expected the Apple one not to, but it does. It’s frustrating when friends visit me and check the weather on their phone and the data for the Google and Apple apps is so bad. I use Willy weather that uses bom. I don’t love it though. Any recommendations? I personally can’t stand the actual BoM app as an iPhone user but I appreciate that they tried…

I'm more of a desktop user, but I wasn't happy with what was out there so I made my own (but only for Melbourne): https://davidjohnstone.net/weather/melbourne . I'm tempted to turn it into a proper Australia-wide product. The BoM's data licensing fees (in the order of $5k/year) are a bit of a barrier.

Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#114
post #11

> Why "PirateWeather"? I've always thought that the HRRR model was pronounced the same way as the classic pirate "ARRR". Also, there is one company out there that thinks APIs can be copyrighted, which might apply here. This answers the first question I had upon seeing the name, which was, is it free, open, documented and legal ? Based on the above the answer seems to be "probably". Very commendable effort, and I hope…

> is it free, open, documented and legal ? I think it says something that we live in a world where NOAA data could be seen as an underground or less than legal means of getting the weather. Perhaps AccuWeather has been successful in their campaign to keep free weather data as obscure as possible.

[dead]

Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is it already a thing, IBM of all people own them now.

We took the real Weather Underground so unseriously that half of them became college professors and one of them was on Jeopardy, seems consistent.

[dead]

Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#116
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s truly maddening as an Aussie. How many apps just ignore the BoM? I expected the Apple one not to, but it does. It’s frustrating when friends visit me and check the weather on their phone and the data for the Google and Apple apps is so bad. I use Willy weather that uses bom. I don’t love it though. Any recommendations? I personally can’t stand the actual BoM app as an iPhone user but I appreciate that they tried…

I wonder if this isn't the same all over? In Sweden we also have a local metrology bureu which produces much better forecasts than most others. As I understand it they basically tweak the global models with .. sort of local "knowledge". And there are many such models, a few EU-specific and, I assume, one local for most countries.

Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise's chapter about weather forecasting described forecasters during a visit doing that, a manual tweak essentially based on experienced intuition at the end that the models couldn't yet replicate.

Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#117
post #70
post #5

I was really hoping https://merrysky.net/ had a graphical forecast similar to weather underground's 10 day. I've yet to find anything else that quickly shows everything you'd want to know in a single image. Even the mouseover timeline is perfection. It is so good and seemingly exclusive to WU that I sometimes wonder if they hold a patent for it.

"... similar to weather underground's 10 day ..." Came here, like I come to every weather API/tool discussion, to ask the same thing ... I would really like a less spammy, less bloated 10-day forecast a la WU. This comes close, however - there's a nice 7-day lookahead ... is it possible that WU is just fudging days 8-9-10 and no real data is available beyond 7 days ?

Ten years ago beyond a week forecasts underperformed long term climatic averages, not sure if that has changed yet.

Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#118

As an Australian, my main issue with almost all Weather API's and services is that the data is almost always sub-par to the weather data provided by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). It would be great if there was a backend provider concept, so that I could tell my devices (such as an iPhone) to only use BOM data for it's inbuilt widgets.

I can’t remember the name but there was a weather feed that was a pretty super aggregate of many feeds and it allowed for a higher level of accuracy to say take different individual values or blend as you might need.

This is a timely post and comment as I’ve been thinking of solving a weather problem I have with that feed. Hoping the hn hive brain might have seen the same.

Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#119
post #116
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this isn't the same all over? In Sweden we also have a local metrology bureu which produces much better forecasts than most others. As I understand it they basically tweak the global models with .. sort of local "knowledge". And there are many such models, a few EU-specific and, I assume, one local for most countries.

Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise 's chapter about weather forecasting described forecasters during a visit doing that, a manual tweak essentially based on experienced intuition at the end that the models couldn't yet replicate.

This makes total sense for where I live too. A crowdsourced api of these adjustments would be neat.

Re: Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

#120

As an Australian, my main issue with almost all Weather API's and services is that the data is almost always sub-par to the weather data provided by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). It would be great if there was a backend provider concept, so that I could tell my devices (such as an iPhone) to only use BOM data for it's inbuilt widgets.

It’s truly maddening as an Aussie. How many apps just ignore the BoM? I expected the Apple one not to, but it does. It’s frustrating when friends visit me and check the weather on their phone and the data for the Google and Apple apps is so bad. I use Willy weather that uses bom. I don’t love it though. Any recommendations? I personally can’t stand the actual BoM app as an iPhone user but I appreciate that they tried…

I just bookmark the BOM forecast web page for my location. Does an app give anything better?
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