YoWindow Forum

Hello...

I am a new user of the YoWindow tools (both the desktop and the Web page gadget)...

But I am not new to trying to understand what the weather is all about ... although some people have been trying, for the past 50 years, to understand what the weather is/was all about and, still, today, with all their knowledge and ultra-fast and ultra-modern computers, cannot even forecast the right weather for the next day... :?

I have had a weather station and weather Web pages for almost 10 years now, although my latest ISS (integrated Sensor suite - weather station hardware if I can call it that way) was purchased about 5 years ago - a somewhat more precise and more reliable weather station.

That was my personal introduction so you can more easily comprehend my suggestions...

I understand that YoWindow was created and developed to be easy to operate and use.

What I would like: The possibility of choosing and entering a METAR as my weather data provider so I do not have to rely only on the information included in the provided list.

At this time, if one wants a new location (city) to be added to the list, one has to provide a 'geonames-id' (from the yr.no site) plus a city name, a province/state and a country. That is fine if there is a listing of one's city on the yr.no site.

But, what about providing a METAR ID code - a METAR ID usually represent an airport or a station managed by a government. There are thousands of METARs around the world - one can have a look at the list through the following link:

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/surface/stations.txt

Or one can find the METAR in one's location at the following NOAA link:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/tg/siteloc.shtml

All that would be needed, for those like me who would like to have more freedom in selecting a local METAR, would be to create/edit a local configuration file where the METAR(s) information would be kept.

What would even be better (and this suggestion and request is very personal) would be if someone like me, an amateur weather station operator, would be able to use my own personal weather date to 'power' my YoWindow. If that suggestion ever becomes an option, that would open an incredible number of station to YoWindows (I am just guessing a number here, but I would estimate an additional 3-5 hundred thousand weather stations). As a station operator, I would be interested and willing in providing my weather data to anyone in my area...

Hello, Ray!
And welcome to our community!

1. We have plans to give you an option to associate METAR station with any location in YoWindow.
I hope this feature will be done in 1-3 months.
In my opinion this request is important for meteo-people only.
Most people don't care about it.
But I just want you to be happy, so I want to add this feature as soon as we have done all the other important work.

2. There are less than 9000 METAR stations around the world.
I have collected the stations for YoWindow using the list of the stations you give the link to.
Unfortunately almost half of them are offline or provide the weather during the day-light hours. only.
So YoWindow is powered by 4500 METAR weather stations now.

3. Yes, we have plans for personal meteo station (PWS) support.
We really want to do this.

Do you know is your PWS capable to generate data in XML format and publish them online?
Can you point me to some documentation on this format?
This will help me to teach YoWindow to read the weather from your station.

There is one problem with PWS for YoWindow.
PWS do not know the cloud cover information.
However, we can solve it by using the cloud information from the closest METAR station.

This feature is on our top-priority list.

I want to ask you for a favor for us.
If you happen to know any online weather comminites in Canada.
Please tell them about YoWindow.
We are well known in Europe, especially in Germany.
But in US and Canada almost nobody heard about YoWindow.
Please please

Thank you for these cunstructive suggestions!

Pasha,

Thanks for replying to my EMail, I've logged in from another computer and am now able to post a reply. Thanks.

Regarding the XML format that personal weather stations may supply, you will find that there is no common format, but all supply the data in a comma delimited format of some sort. Rather than trying to get YoWindow to read the data that the various software packages produce, perhaps it would be better to declare your own format and let them adjust? Perhaps use the present yr.no format?

I believe many of the software authors would be glad to create output in this format once they are aware of it, they've done that many times in the past for popular projects. In the meantime, those who have PHP available could run PHP scripts to translate from their current csv format to your XML. I plan to do that for my station once YoWindow has that capability.

As for cloud cover information, many stations like mine have solar detectors to approximate that during the day time. At night the software that I use (Weather Display by Brian Hamilton) will use the information from my closest METAR. Those without solar detectors can use the closest METAR both day and night. I suspect many of the software packages can work like that. That would relieve you from having to complicate YoWindow with that issue.

So, maybe YoWindow would only need the URL to the PHP script or XML file and then just operate in the normal manner?

Thanks. - Jim

Hey, Jim!
Wonderful post

I think you are right, as soon as YoWindow is ready for PWS support (I hope soon) I will publish YoWindow weather format for the current weather.
yr.no provides forecasts only, so their format is a forecast format, it is a little different.
At the moment I use our own XML weather format, it's much easy to reuse it for PWS.

Thanks for the information on how PWS detects cloud cover, I wasn't aware about METAR download feature.

>So, maybe YoWindow would only need the URL to the PHP script or XML file and then just operate in the normal manner?
Yes! This is the way I have planned to make it work.

Thanks for your support!

Pasha,

That is excellent and I look forward to seeing the required XML format when it is published. I will likely create a PHP script to output Weather Display clientraw.txt data in that format for use with YoWindow. I will also encourage Brian Hamilton, the author of that program, to add that feature as an optional output directly from the program so there will be no need for a PHP script. I expect that other software authors will also be willing to do this too if they get enough requests. I will bet that this really increases YoWindow visibility and use within the Personal Weather Station community.

Thank You. - Jim

hi pasha

have just read this thread
and wanted to ask whether there is a possibility of this private weather homepage
http://www.bonn-blick.de/index.php?opti ... Itemid=110
If these data could not insert too? or been there to ask whether this will work?
The data from cologne / bonn airport here do not always be 100%
greetings markus

Time is only an idea, if ye have been with private weather stations because there are very many in the region

Thanks, Jim!

Chucky, as soon as I'm ready to work with PWS data I will take a look at this meteo-station format.

Pasha,
I run Weather Display also, so if you need testing I'll be willing to do it.

Pasha, I can finally reply to your message and questions...

1. We have plans to give you an option to associate METAR station with any location in YoWindow. I hope this feature will be done in 1-3 months.
In my opinion this request is important for meteo-people only. Most people don't care about it.

How do you or would you know that most people would not appreciate the METAR option since most people do not know what a METAR is all about.

Maybe, when people find out that they can use a local METAR (a closed by weather station, more so in North America) rather than relying on what 'yr.no' has decided was their local weather provider (not as much choices for North American than there is for Europe), they might prefer to have a local METAR station.

As I have already mentioned to you, for my area, YoWindow offers me 3 choices, all 3 choices being poor and unreliable METARS (one with limited weather data and the other 2 with no night and weekend service). I already suggested that the Victoria Esquimalt Naval Station METAR (British Columbia, Canada) (limited and unreliable weather data at the best of time) be replaced by the Victoria International Airport METAR (British Columbia, Canada) (very reliable weather data including forecasts, human managed, 24/7/365). And you know also about the other two METAR choices offered for my area...

But I just want you to be happy, so I want to add this feature as soon as we have done all the other important work.

I am not the one you must please - I think that if you are trying to enter the north american then you will need services for the north american users.

To really make me happy, you would need to make YoWindow fully flexibility so I can enter where I want YoWindow to get its weather data, not just a choice with the local METAR but also a choice from any local PWS (amateur/personal weather station, such as the weather station that I have been operating 24/7/365 for the past 7 years). There are hundred of thousands of those PWS all over the world and their numbers are increasing quite rapidly with the advent/sale of new low priced weather stations mostly in Europe.

2. There are less than 9000 METAR stations around the world. ... Unfortunately almost half of them are offline or provide the weather during the day-light hours. only. So YoWindow is powered by 4500 METAR weather stations now.

Most the weather information in North America is provided by local METARS. In Canada, that information is being managed by Environment Canada (government owned) and in the USA, the information is being managed by NOAA (also government owned).

Thus my suggestion to include privately owned PWS - in my local area alone, there are 7 such station - most of them more reliable than the local METARS...

3. Yes, we have plans for personal meteo station (PWS) support. We really want to do this.

I think this should be one of your main priority - as I wrote above, the number of those PWS is increasing quite rapidly. I am an active member of one such weather station software forum, called Cumulus (the designer lives in northern UK). Over the past 2 months, the number of new owners has increased 300%...

Do you know is your PWS capable to generate data in XML format and publish them online? Can you point me to some documentation on this format?
This will help me to teach YoWindow to read the weather from your station.

Almost all weather station can, either by themselves or with the assistance of some PHP code, generate an XML file such as required by the YoWindow flash files.

I run 2 different weather software, Weather Display (the oldest and most complete and reliable) and Cumulus (newer and not as complete). Neither of those software 'natively' produce an XML file as that file format is not being used by either software.

But, with the Cumulus, I am producing an XML file that I use for some of the XML-type of weather Web pages - thus it is possible.

But I need from you the required parameters - which bit of weather information do you need, such as the temperature, the wind speed and direction, the barometric pressure, the humidity, the 'feels-like' temperature, the forecast, etc...

There is one problem with PWS for YoWindow. PWS do not know the cloud cover information.

My Weather Display software produces forecasts such as 'scattered clouds' (because my weather station is equipped with both a solar sensor and a UV sensor) but accurate cloud cover information can ONLY be provided by a METAR where humans are involved...

This feature is on our top-priority list.

As I have indicated in a previous message and in this reply, I am willing to help you as long as you provide me with requirements and possibly involve me with the development ... and I am asking for no compensation in return...

I want to ask you for a favor for us. If you happen to know any online weather comminites in Canada. Please tell them about YoWindow.
We are well known in Europe, especially in Germany. But in US and Canada almost nobody heard about YoWindow.

There might be a few forums where I could place a message about YoWindow...

But I will have to wait until YoWindow becomes more flexible, until YoWindow accepts a file produced by PWS... Then, the amateur/personal weather station operators can really promote YoWindow as an extension to our online weather stations - we can tell our viewers that they can get their weather information from their local PWS using the modern and beautifully designed YoWindow desktop/screensaver software...

Note: I have already installed the YoWindow gadget on my Web pages, but since the local availability of weather information is poor and unreliable, I cannot promote YoWindow...

I know I am very demanding, but if you want to access the north american viewers you have to provide a great product - YoWindow has all the substances to become a great product but it is not there yet - not enough flexibility...

Pasha, you replied the following to Chucky:

Chucky, as soon as I'm ready to work with PWS data I will take a look at this meteo-station format.

The link 'chucky' provided was for 'Weather Display Live', an add-on to Weather display. Although WDL uses an XML file for its setup it uses a text file for its weather data - that text file being continuously produced (and uploaded every 5-10 seconds) by Weather Display. The text file is called 'clientraw.txt' and it contains 165 different (bits of) weather information.

thanks pasha

that would be great if we could take the weather station with bonn
how it would actually see with the copyright from?