X-Git-Url: https://www.yuggoth.org/gitweb?p=weather.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=FAQ;h=280c0affe8f36c9bf905abe922b4915a40c8158f;hp=ce7f213c8040ba53502b4d60d9279f1286805913;hb=1ec2848c205249420d64d7924f2ee1840efff140;hpb=eb249a0ae2f1644a67d6231b7cddf292058080e7 diff --git a/FAQ b/FAQ index ce7f213..280c0af 100644 --- a/FAQ +++ b/FAQ @@ -1,68 +1,78 @@ -FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WEATHER UTILITY +====================================================== + Frequently Asked Questions About the Weather Utility +====================================================== -Copyright (c) 2006 Jeremy Stanley , all rights reserved. -Licensed per terms in the LICENSE file distributed with this software. +:Copyright: (c) 2006-2017 Jeremy Stanley . Permission + to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software is + granted under terms provided in the LICENSE file distributed + with this software. - -Table of Contents: +.. contents:: 1. Can I help? -2. How do I figure out my local METAR station ID? -3. How do I figure out my local city name and state abbreviation? -4. I live outside the USA--can this be made to work for me - anyway? -5. Why do I get the wrong forecast when specifying -i or --id? - - -1. Can I help? - -Sure! Bug reports and feature suggestions are always welcome, but -fixes and patches are of course preferred. Contact -fungi@yuggoth.org if desired, but please read this FAQ and the -included manuals for weather(1) and weatherrc(5) before asking -questions that might be answered therein. One big way anyone can -help is to provide me with some additional mappings of METAR -station ID, city name and state abbreviation for inclusion in the -default /etc/weatherrc file. - +-------------- +Sure! Bug reports and feature suggestions are always welcome, but fixes +and patches are of course preferred. Contact fungi@yuggoth.org if +desired, but please read this FAQ and the included manuals for +weather(1) and weatherrc(5) before asking questions that might be +answered therein. 2. How do I figure out my local METAR station ID? - -The list of stations is found at -http://weather.noaa.gov/data/nsd_cccc.gz (it's thousands of lines -long, so I recommend keyword searching in your browser or using -grep(1) to find what you're looking for). - +------------------------------------------------- +The list of stations included in the "stations" file is comprised of +thousands of entries, so if you're within the USA it's recommended to +use weather's built-in Census place name and ZCTA (postal ZIP code) +searching capabilities. Otherwise, using its latitude,longitude +coordinate search feature is probably your best bet. See the weather(1) +manual for examples. 3. How do I figure out my local city name and state abbreviation? - -The forecasts can be located starting from -http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/forecasts/city/ (choose the -state abbreviation to get to a list of cities in that state). - - -4. I live outside the USA--can this be made to work for me -anyway? - -If you have any recommendations for similar forecast data in -other countries, I will be happy to try and find a way to -integrate it into the weather utility, but I suspect that some -serious modification would be necessary given that the data is -likely to be published in a non-English language, requiring some -additional input from speakers of that language for how to handle -filtering and formatting of the text. - +----------------------------------------------------------------- +As of the 2.0 release, this is no longer necessary. In Spring of 2011 +the NWS switched away from city-named forecast zone IDs to the numeric +state zone IDs also used for alerts. As a result, weather now comes with +pregenerated correlations between airports/stations and zones along with +USA Census (FIPS and ZCTA/ZIP code) and global latitude,longitude +coordinates and can search among them in a flexible and intuitive +manner. See the weather(1) manual for examples. + +4. I live outside the USA--can this be made to work for me anyway? +------------------------------------------------------------------ +ICAO codes for METAR stations can be found for cities and airports +worldwide, but forecast and alert data is harder to come by. If you have +any recommendations of plaintext data for other countries available in a +format like NOAA's, I will be happy to start incorporating it into the +weather utility. If the data is published in a non-English language, +I'll require some additional input from speakers of that language for +how to handle filtering and formatting of the text. 5. Why do I get the wrong forecast when specifying -i or --id? - -The -i or --id switch (or the id parameter in an alias definition), -only tells weather(1) what current conditions to retrieve. If you -specify -f or --forecast on the command line (or forecast=True in -an alias) without providing a city name and state abbreviation -(-c/--city and -s/--st, or city and st in an alias), you will -instead see the forecast for the built-in default location (or the -city and st defined in the default alias, if you have one). See -question 3 above for information on figuring out what city name and -state abbreviation to use, and the manual for weatherrc(5) for -information on defining aliases. - +-------------------------------------------------------------- +As of the 2.0 release, this question is no longer relevant. + +6. Where can I get a list of the NWS advisory zones for alerts? +--------------------------------------------------------------- +As of the 2.0 release, this is no longer necessary. See FAQ entries #2 +and #3 for more detail. + +7. What values are valid for a --headers list? +---------------------------------------------- +The default set it uses if you don't override it yourself on the command +line or in configuration is as follows:: + + heat_index + precipitation_last_hour + relative_humidity + sky_conditions + temperature + weather + wind + windchill + +These are a case-insensitive match against the start of lines in a +decoded METAR up to the first colon (:) with underscores (_) replaced by +spaces. You can see the full METAR for a given condition report by +passing --verbose or by observing one directly (perhaps by looking in +your *datacache* directory). Unfortunately I haven't found any proper +specification for the decoded METAR format used by the NWS so know of no +comprehensive list of what lines might appear.