Mashup Google with NOAA, and you get -- forecasts!
May 18, 2006 2:00 PM   Subscribe

Why not mashup Google maps and NOAA's digital forecast database? Enter a zip code, a city name, or just point and click on a map (continental US and Hawaii only, alas). A 5 day forecast will appear at the bottom of the screen (including some cheesy little pictures illustrating, like rain and fog, just in case you forget what they look like).
posted by jasper411 (20 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Cool, live radar overlays would be even more cool.
posted by geoff. at 2:03 PM on May 18, 2006


Ummm, that's interesting and all, but clicking on the map isn't really that much easier (and much less accurate) than just going to the NWS site and entering your location.

Too many people wanting to show that they too can do AJAX.
posted by Ickster at 2:04 PM on May 18, 2006


This is kinda worthless. Who doesn't know their zip code? What is the map doing there?
posted by selfnoise at 2:13 PM on May 18, 2006


This is maybe the least impressive thing I've seen in a long, long time.
posted by ChasFile at 2:15 PM on May 18, 2006


selfnoise - you could point to a city you're about to fly to, where you may not know the zip code.
posted by jasper411 at 2:16 PM on May 18, 2006


Yahoo and countless others have let me know this information by placename or ZIP code since what 1994? Sure no one has bothered to show me a map of the US at the same time.

I really was expecting to see a sat view or up-close pic with an overlay of clouds like on the doppler 9000 channel 36 has.
posted by birdherder at 2:19 PM on May 18, 2006


Jasper - It would take you less time to type the city name up in the box, at which point the map is once again useless to you.
posted by selfnoise at 2:22 PM on May 18, 2006


This would be handy for travel. Lots of times I'm headed to a major city and the weather sites want so much detail (you entered new york, did you mean one of the three airports? or upstate? or somewhere in new jersey?)
posted by mathowie at 2:27 PM on May 18, 2006


More interesting tries at marrying Google Maps with weather are here and here.
posted by beagle at 2:28 PM on May 18, 2006 [1 favorite]


Not like there aren't any zip code finders on the internets....
posted by Eekacat at 2:50 PM on May 18, 2006


thanks for not calling it web 2.0

seriously.
posted by Mach5 at 3:53 PM on May 18, 2006


It is a thinly disguised plot to cause all those simpering TV weather persons to become redundant. Can't be all bad.
posted by Cranberry at 4:12 PM on May 18, 2006


The map for our town shows the weather Today, Tonight, Tomorrow, Tomorrow Night, Sunday, Sunday Night, Monday, Monday Night, Tuesday, Tuesday Night. What happened to Saturday? (Which actually is the day I was wondering about, since all my kid's Little League games/practices have been rained out lately.)
posted by LeLiLo at 6:08 PM on May 18, 2006


Thank you for not mentioniong "Web 2.0", but fuck "mashup". Just say "mix" or "blend". There is no reason to be Trendy McDoctorow.

Anyone else tired of "mashup" as well?
posted by secret about box at 7:18 PM on May 18, 2006


OK, it's not trendy, but it has weather maps.

In particular, there's a java app to display all the last hour's meteorological observations at airports all over the country. Go here for METARs.

If you want to know how much your air travel is going to suck, check out the airmets.
posted by surlycat at 11:20 PM on May 18, 2006


I tried to use NOAA data to overlay text forecasts on Google Calendar -- so I could see at a glance whether I was really going hiking on Sunday like my schedule said. The NOAA SOAP interface seemed totally broken, though, so I gave up (I wasn't interested in screen-scraping).
posted by nev at 7:06 AM on May 19, 2006


Weather Underground has a very nice Google Maps / weather mashup.

It displays data from user's personal weather stations as well as actual weather stations. My station is somewhere around in that link.
posted by bensinc at 9:03 AM on May 19, 2006


bensinc - personal weather stations that broadcast? I've never heard of such a thing - that is so cool! How does that work?

I googled for personal weather stations and find lots of for sale sites, but I can't find a site that would have basic information about how it all works.
posted by jasper411 at 11:28 AM on May 19, 2006


I'm not sure if "broadcast" is the most accurate term, but Weather Underground lets you send them data from your personal weather station and integrates it into their system.

If you look up the weather for 50310, they actually give you my data because I happen to be the closest station to the center of the zip code.
posted by bensinc at 2:34 PM on May 19, 2006


sounds like a great tool for worriers...

get a nice dashboard of several friends/relatives you'd prefer to evacuate personally

I love AJAX ;-)
posted by gkr at 5:19 PM on May 19, 2006


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