Author Topic: Weather Underground  (Read 5398 times)

Blicj11

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Weather Underground
« on: March 21, 2017, 03:04:35 PM »
The latest news from WU is that on April 3, 2017, they are dropping:
  • Member blogs
  • WUMail
  • SMS alerts
Whilst I do not use any of those features, I observe they are dropping services at a good clip. For example, they recently dropped two features that I did use occasionally:
  • NOAA weather radio
  • Aviation features
I also note that for the last week, they have dropped posting my webcam images to my WU dashboard. I know they are receiving the uploads because I can view them when I go to the Webcam section.

In my opinion, the best feature they have is the extrapolation of the weather forecast localised for my latitude and longitude based on the weather data uploaded from my weather station. In my case, it has been, by far, the most accurate forecast I can get for snow at my house. It is somewhat less accurate for rain forecasting, but still better than the forecast I can get from several places for the closest airport. When they drop this service, it will be time for me to drop them.

As a side note, in the area of the mountain where I live, I used to be the only PWS uploading to WU. In the last year, several Netatmo stations have popped up. I note that their weather data is not even remotely close to mine for temperature, humidity and rainfall and none of them report wind. So far, they have not impacted the quality of the extrapolated forecasts. Perhaps more weight is given to the personal weather stations that earn the coveted WU Gold Star of Quality award.

It will be interesting to see if WU retains anything valuable when they are finished pruning.
Blick


elagache

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Puzzling (Re: Weather Underground )
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2017, 09:24:43 PM »
Dear Blick and WeatherCat data submission junkies,

The latest news from WU is that on April 3, 2017, they are dropping:

. . . .

Thanks for pointing that out.  I'm just too busy these days to keep up with this sort of thing, but I am also puzzled.  Dropping the blogs could seriously disturb users who were trying to make Weather Underground there "home weather page," thereby avoiding the need to have web hosting of their own.  It is possible that it is so easy to create a weather website with all the available templates that the blog feature was going mostly unused.  Still without an explanation, it is strange.

I just checked the Wikipedia article on WeatherBug:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeatherBug

It still says WeatherBug beat out Weather Underground in 2012.  However, according to a current Amazon ranking:

http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/News/Weather

Weather Underground is now the top weather website that has data submitted from personal weather stations.  So IBM does have a golden goose that they might be killing.  Certainly with social media and personal weather stations gaining in popularity, Weather Underground has to be facing stiffening competition from rival sites like WeatherBug.  Cutting features is one way to get users to jump ship.


It will be interesting to see if WU retains anything valuable when they are finished pruning.

Indeed, we'll just have to see if there actually is some method in the madness or if it is simply madness.

Cheers, Edouard

Blicj11

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Re: Weather Underground
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2017, 06:10:55 PM »
Something else that apparently has disappeared from WU are the localised forecasts extrapolated for one's latitude and longitude. For several years I have found their pinpoint forecasts for my location to be the most accurate forecasts available. Although I am only about 10 miles from a small airport, my home is almost 1100 metres higher in elevation than the airport so the standard airport forecasts are no good to me. I noticed about a month ago that the localised forecast for my home is now the same as the forecast for the airport. This is a major disappointment to me. Have any of you noticed this for your home, or are they just targeting me?
Blick


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Re: Weather Underground
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2017, 09:07:41 PM »
Something else that apparently has disappeared from WU are the localised forecasts extrapolated for one's latitude and longitude. For several years I have found their pinpoint forecasts for my location to be the most accurate forecasts available. Although I am only about 10 miles from a small airport, my home is almost 1100 metres higher in elevation than the airport so the standard airport forecasts are no good to me. I noticed about a month ago that the localised forecast for my home is now the same as the forecast for the airport. This is a major disappointment to me. Have any of you noticed this for your home, or are they just targeting me?


I don't think that's universal, Blick. I'm located about five miles (as the crow flies) from a regional airport and I'm 350 feet higher. Looking at tomorrow's temperature forecast, I'm 1?F less than than the WU airport forecast. In line with the standard lapse rate.


BTW, I just went through a week of sporadic WU webcam updates. No password changes nor software updates, my FTP log showed the images were being transmitted right on schedule and the image sizes were under 150Kb.


Then last Sunday, everything started working again.


BTW, for anyone interested, WeatherCat works fine with Monday's security release of macOS 10.12.5 (with the equipment in my profile). WeatherCat iOS stopped working on my iPhone though. Since Grand hasn't mentioned anything, I assume the problem is on my end. Just haven't gotten around sorting out why it stops on "Checking the connection."

Blicj11

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Re: Weather Underground
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2017, 11:26:45 PM »
I don't think that's universal, Blick. I'm located about five miles (as the crow flies) from a regional airport and I'm 350 feet higher. Looking at tomorrow's temperature forecast, I'm 1?F less than than the WU airport forecast. In line with the standard lapse rate.

Thanks for sharing. I hope it's temporary for me.

BTW, I just went through a week of sporadic WU webcam updates. No password changes nor software updates, my FTP log showed the images were being transmitted right on schedule and the image sizes were under 150Kb.

Then last Sunday, everything started working again.

That happened to me as well and I am am back up running now.

WeatherCat iOS stopped working on my iPhone though. Since Grand hasn't mentioned anything, I assume the problem is on my end. Just haven't gotten around sorting out why it stops on "Checking the connection."

Two things you can check:
  • Make sure when you came back up on your Mac that it properly opened up the Port you are using for the WC Client Server - scan that port and make sure it is open
  • Kill the iOS app on your phone and try to connect again
Blick


elagache

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When will WU ever be "finished?" (Re: Weather Underground )
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2017, 11:42:58 PM »
Dear Blick, Felix, and WeatherCat data submission junkies, . . . .

I know that Weather Underground has now changed hands twice, but it sure is amazing how long it is taking for their infrastructure to settle down.  How long has this been going on?  It feels to me like these sort of intermittent outages have been going on for years.

This afternoon I'm getting sporadic "Cannot decode Wunderground reply" errors.

Oh well, . . . . nothing we can do but grin and bear it.

Edouard

elagache

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More service upgrades underway. (Re: Weather Underground )
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2017, 10:59:24 PM »
Dear WeatherCat data submission junkies,

I've been getting FTP upload errors associated with my webcam image and sporadic Weather Underground data upload errors.  So I suppose the folks at Weather Underground are once more messing around with their data upload servers.  So if you also observe these sort of errors this is another one of those moments where:  "No adjustment of your TV set is necessary" . . . . . . . [rolleyes2]

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

xairbusdriver

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Re: Weather Underground
« Reply #7 on: September 13, 2017, 01:06:52 AM »
I sometimes do some "live" editing on my site, but generally not on pages that are getting updated by WC on it's 2 minute cycle! I figure there are not many people (ever) connected to my site, but I would think Wunderground would do this sort of 'tweaking' only on off-line servers.

As you say... "Oh well..." [rolleyes2]
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Blicj11

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Re: More service upgrades underway. (Re: Weather Underground )
« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2017, 01:30:55 AM »
I've been getting FTP upload errors associated with my webcam image and sporadic Weather Underground data upload errors.  So I suppose the folks at Weather Underground are once more messing around with their data upload servers.

Same here, However, after going all summer without providing forecasts that are extrapolated for your PWS latitude and longitude, they have once again begin to produce those forecasts. In the meantime, the NWS has changed their algorithm for providing the backyard forecast for your location and their new forecasts are much more accurate than they were on the old system. So now you have two choices, and they are both pretty good, and in my case, much better than the forecast for the nearest airport.
Blick


elagache

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Interesting . . . . (Re: Weather Underground )
« Reply #9 on: September 13, 2017, 10:59:16 PM »
Dear X-Air, Blick, and WeatherCat observers of the Internet and the atmosphere,

I would think Wunderground would do this sort of 'tweaking' only on off-line servers.

 ;) . . . Of course not!  If they did that, they would be providing good customer service which would cause all of us users to instantly die from the sudden shock of it all!  lol(1)

In the meantime, the NWS has changed their algorithm for providing the backyard forecast for your location and their new forecasts are much more accurate than they were on the old system. So now you have two choices, and they are both pretty good, and in my case, much better than the forecast for the nearest airport.

Glad to hear that the National Weather Service has finally come up with a reasonable sort of interpolation algorithm that is finally giving you decent match-up with your actual weather conditions.  Having 2 competent choices is far better than none!

Alas, the Monterey office of the National Weather Service isn't faring so well.  The weather here is so unusual in Northern California that they are having a great deal of trouble estimating the conditions and temperatures.  For example, the forecast for today was mostly sunny with a high of 73˚ F.  Instead it is mostly cloudy with a high of only 69.4˚ F.  Keeps me on my toes!

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Blicj11

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Re: Interesting . . . . (Re: Weather Underground )
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2017, 12:07:18 AM »
Alas, the Monterey office of the National Weather Service isn't faring so well.  The weather here is so unusual in Northern California that they are having a great deal of trouble estimating the conditions and temperatures.  For example, the forecast for today was mostly sunny with a high of 73˚ F.  Instead it is mostly cloudy with a high of only 69.4˚ F.  Keeps me on my toes!

Hahaha, Edouard, if you are unhappy with the forecast being off by 3.6?F, you will really scream when you find out that Apple just took the iOS App Store out of iTunes.
Blick