Author Topic: Send a Red Flag Warning  (Read 4408 times)

The Grand Poohbah

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Send a Red Flag Warning
« on: June 12, 2019, 10:37:26 PM »
We are forming a Firewise Community in our immediate rural neighborhood of 40+ households.

I'd like to let our community know when conditions exist that might lead to a Red Flag Warning. The conditions are (1) temperatures over 90 degrees F for several hours, (2) 25% RH or less for several hours, and (3) winds at least 15 mph for several hours.

Is there a way that WeatherCat can make this computation and automatically send a text message to a list of interested parties?

elagache

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AppleScript is the only obvious way. (Re: Send a Red Flag Warning)
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2019, 10:54:20 PM »
Dear Grand and WeatherCat observers of wildfire weather,

We are forming a Firewise Community in our immediate rural neighborhood of 40+ households.

I certainly understand the concern.  We have already had a fire in a nearby town and the weed clearing deadline isn't until the 15th!


I'd like to let our community know when conditions exist that might lead to a Red Flag Warning. The conditions are (1) temperatures over 90 degrees F for several hours, (2) 25% RH or less for several hours, and (3) winds at least 15 mph for several hours.

Is there a way that WeatherCat can make this computation and automatically send a text message to a list of interested parties?

I took a look at WeatherCat custom alert feature and I don't see anyway to measure the duration of some set of weather conditions.  It is relatively easy to write an AppleScript that could monitor and determine if the Red Flag conditions are being met.  I'm still not able to get my AppleScripts to work properly under Mojave's security features, but the problem might be with the age of the AppleScripts.  If you start from scratch, the problem might not exist.

I just found this web page that provides instructions on how to send SMS messages using the Messages app:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/162598/programmatically-send-text-message-through-messages-app-on-os-x-10-10

So if you are willing to get your hands dirty with AppleScript it seems possible.  Take a look at my AppleScripts for examples:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=1039.0

All these AppleScripts have gotten involved, but perhaps WC Twitter Uploader is not a bad place to start.  It shows how to create a stand alone application that will periodically sample the weather conditions and perform an action under certain conditions.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]