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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

#121

Post by a_square_peg »

ace2358 wrote: post #108
Humphrey wrote: post #106

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…

BoM actually makes it quite difficult to obtain data. I looked into it once and thought it wasn't worth the trouble. Some agencies make it easier than others to obtain the raw data as it's sort of part of their mandates.

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

#122

Post by null_object »

sandos wrote: post #112
ace2358 wrote: post #108

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.

> In Sweden we also have a local metrology bureu which produces much better forecasts than most others

Ironically Sweden’s best weather forecast comes from Norway [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31965812

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

#123

Post by l3_ »

Humphrey wrote: post #106

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.

For my own projects I end up using the WillyWeather APIs as they have a generous free tier and use BOM data - but yeah absolutely echo your complaints, I've seen Google up to 4 degrees off BOM/ my own weather station.

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

#124

Post by jamesbfb »

a_square_peg wrote: post #121
ace2358 wrote: post #108

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…

BoM actually makes it quite difficult to obtain data. I looked into it once and thought it wasn't worth the trouble. Some agencies make it easier than others to obtain the raw data as it's sort of part of their mandates.

And they've made it even more difficult over the past few years. I had written a script that would scrape BoM's page and send the up-to-date conditions via MQTT but it stopped working a few years ago. IRIC, even changing the HTTP headers/user-agent prevented it from ever working again. That said, I understand it's absolutely their prerogative and they have a right to make money from the data.

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

#125

Post by markdown »

jamesbfb wrote: post #124
a_square_peg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BoM actually makes it quite difficult to obtain data. I looked into it once and thought it wasn't worth the trouble. Some agencies make it easier than others to obtain the raw data as it's sort of part of their mandates.

And they've made it even more difficult over the past few years. I had written a script that would scrape BoM's page and send the up-to-date conditions via MQTT but it stopped working a few years ago. IRIC, even changing the HTTP headers/user-agent prevented it from ever working again. That said, I understand it's absolutely their prerogative and they have a right to make money from the data.

> they have a right to make money from the data.

I thought it was a govt service. BOM is private?

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

#126

Post by alexander0042 »

mesoman wrote: post #107
earthscienceman wrote: post #8

It's going to be a tangential comment but I work in science research that's adjacent to weather forecasting and I find the political/technical jockeying that is happening with forecasting to be fascinating. It's a nexus of capitalism, federal government spending, politics, and technology that has very real implications for individual Americans. In summary: horrible oversight by the federal govt (read, congress) of ou…

As one who wrote (over 10 years ago, still improving it) and sells a weather app targeted at storm chasers, weather enthusiasts and spotters... I find the NWS data to be fragmented, often based on ancient computing standards (look at how NEXRAD data is formatted - it's binary for a 16-bit computer), and very hard to find documentation on. Companies can add value by providing documented, consistent API's for data that…

As the dev who set up the Pirate Weather source, I couldn't agree more. 90% of the challenge here was getting the grib files into a format I could quickly and easily access, since the provided format is about as difficult as it gets. I don't pretend to know more about the actual art of forecasting than NOAA, but wanted a better way to get the data they produce out there

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

#127

Post by alexander0042 »

datalus wrote: post #85

I found this old blog article at a high level on how Dark Sky works... about 12 years old now. I always loved this app and was kind of sad when Apple acquired them... but to have Apple come in and just buy your app out is probably a great feeling for the founders :) Anyhow, here's the url: https://jackadam.github.io/2011/how-dark-sky-works

This is fascinating, thank you for sharing! What is even more amazing about Dark Sky is that they did this in 2011, when a lot of the tools I have access to now didn't exist. For Pirate Weather, I avoid working with radar data at all, instead using the 15-minute forecast that the HRRR model provides

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

#129

Post by midoridensha »

jacurtis wrote: post #31
NoboruWataya wrote: post #3

> 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…

I agree, PirateWeather seems like a misbrand here. When I read it, i thought it was stealing weather data or something. On the web, the term "pirate" generally doesn't mean good things. This name almost implies that it is illegal or something. I'm imagining designing a software product around this and presenting it to a C-Level, explaining that we use "PirateWeather" and I think I'm going to get grilled with lots of…

>On the web, the term "pirate" generally doesn't mean good things.

That depends on who you ask... People who are fans of, e.g., ThePirateBay probably would disagree with you.

Also, there's a shipping service called PirateShip that's totally legal (it's basically a frontend to USPS shipping labels). The website is pretty amusing with the "Arr, matey!" stuff.

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

#130

Post by midoridensha »

phpisthebest wrote: post #102
Bloating wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wunderground.com has existed for a long time. Defining feature it is can crowd source weather

That used to be the defining feature. IBM has killed the community and put alot of restrictions on the data

I wonder if they put the codebase into ClearCase too.
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