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2 General Information About the Weather Utility
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5 :Copyright: (c) 2006-2012 Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org>. Permission
6 to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software is
7 granted under terms provided in the LICENSE file distributed
14 This command-line utility is intended to provide quick access to current
15 weather conditions and forecasts. Presently, it is capable of returning
16 data for localities throughout the USA and some select locations
17 globally by retrieving and formatting decoded METARs (Meteorological
18 Aerodrome Reports) from NOAA (the USA National Oceanic and Atmospheric
19 Administration) and forecasts/alerts from NWS (the USA National Weather
20 Service). The tool is written to function in the same spirit as other
21 command-line informational utilities like cal(1), calendar(1) and
22 dict(1). It retrieves arbitrary weather data via precompiled
23 correlations or custom-tailored aliases (system-wide or on a per-user
24 basis). It can be freely used and redistributed under the terms of a
29 My girlfriend had a long commute to/from work and school, and often
30 wanted to check the weather both for home and her office. Unfortunately,
31 starting a Web browser, pulling up a weather site, entering multiple ZIP
32 codes and waiting for them to load is time-consuming for the
33 marginally-impatient. Since she tended to stay logged into a shell
34 server most of the time, I figured I'd install a quick command-line tool
35 to retrieve weather info for her commute. To my surprise, a quick search
36 turned up little that met my basic requirements:
38 * retrieve current data on-demand
39 * provide both current conditions and short-term forecasts
40 * simple, human-readable output
41 * easy to configure and use
42 * flexible command-line switches and options
46 A tarball for the most recent version of the weather utility can be had
49 * http://fungi.yuggoth.org/weather/src/
51 Alternatively, Debian and Ubuntu users can install the weather-util
52 package from any mirror.