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Weather is big business. Farmers want to know when is the best time to plant (or harvest). Event organizers want to know if a thunderstorm might come up during an open-air concert. And the rest of us want to know about their daily commute and plans for the weekend barbeque.
During a chat not long ago in the #Soylent channel of SoylentNews' IRC server, I discovered there are likely others who have an interest in all things weather-related.
I thought it might be interesting to see what weather resources my fellow Soylentils use. Not just for forecasting, but for getting current conditions, and while we are at it, let's include space weather forecasts, too. Note: I live in the USA and my primary browser is Pale Moon; please submit comments with other resources!
- Broadcast media - Local radio / TV station broadcasts.
- The Weather Channel - Cable TV weather channel
- http://www.accuweather.com/ - online weather forecast
- http://www.intellicast.com/ - online weather forecast
- ForecastFox -- an addon for Firefox, it gets a localized report from AccuWeather and displays it in a toolbar in FireFox (original, FF v28+) browser.
- http://images.intellicast.com/WxImages/RadarLoop/usa_None_anim.gif - Radar Loop for entire USA.
- https://earth.nullschool.net/ - earth :: a global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions
- http://en.blitzortung.org/live_lightning_maps.php - A worldwide, real time, community collaborative lightning location network.
- http://www.weather.gov/ US National Weather Service.
- http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/planetary-k-index - Planetary k-index -- likelihood of geomagnetic storms (aurora).
- http://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/aurora-forecast-northern-hemisphere.jpg - visual prediction of aurora in northern hemisphere or southern hemisphere
Many of the sites require some Javascript, but I have had success using NoScript and selectively enabling from 1 to 4 domains to get things to work.
My favorite going-down-the-rabbit-hole site is at nullschool.net -- click on the word "earth" to bring up (and hide) a menu of features and presentations you can choose. Check out ocean currents and temps, surface winds and temps, etc. See their about page for a more detailed summary of the options.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @01:38AM
My gf looks at weather.com and we both read the forecast in the morning newspaper. But we are between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario (great lakes) and those forecasts are wrong at least as often as they are right. Obviously they have a better chance of being correct if you only care about 6-12 hours ahead, but even then it might rain hard here...and not at our friend's house a mile away. And if I'm planning to go out to watch the car races about five miles from here, they have a good chance of being dry (and running) when I've been rained out (and vice versa).
So I look out the window (upwind) and see what's coming next. Also outside that window is an old glass thermometer in a vertical metal scale, angled so it can be read from inside.