How To: WUnderground Forecasts

Posted on
Sun Jan 04, 2015 9:16 am
DaveL17 offline
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How To: WUnderground Forecasts

There is a metric ton of information available from Weather Underground with respect to forecasted weather conditions and the WUnderground plugin makes much of this information available for triggers and for display in control pages. There are presently three plugin device types that make weather forecast data available -- the base Weather Device, the Hourly Forecast Device, and the Ten Day Forecast Device.

Weather Device - The base weather device exposes a considerable amount of forecast data, and the period covered by each data field depends on the field in question. There are four (4) observations exposed for each daily forecast field - Today, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4. Today represents the forecast for today and not the current conditions.

Forecast Conditions - a short string describing the weather ("Chance of snow")
Forecast Day Name - the proper name ("Sunday")
Forecast High - Fahrenheit or metric temperature (depending on user settings)
Forecast Low - Fahrenheit or metric temperature (depending on user settings)
Forecast Precipitation - the chance of precipitation for the day (0 to 100)
Icon - a short icon name for custom images on control pages ("partlycloudy")

As opposed to the daily forecast information above, the detailed forecast information is provided in half-day units--Sunday, Sunday Night, Monday, Monday Night. There are seven (7) half-day observations exposed for each detailed forecast:
Detailed Forecast - a short string describing the forecast period ("Sunday Night")
Detailed Forecast Text - a long string describing the weather ("Mainly clear. Low 2F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph.")

Hourly Forecast Device - The hourly forecast device exposes additional hourly forecast information for the next 24 hourly periods from the last time that the Weather Underground source data was refreshed (not necessarily the last time the WUnderground weather device was refreshed.) This device type exposes eight (8) pieces of information for each of the next 24 hourly periods:

Conditions - a short string describing the weather ("Partly Cloudy")
Icon - a short icon name for custom images on control pages ("partlycloudy")
Icon Day/Night - a short icon name for custom images on control pages, adjusted for isDaylight = False ("nt_partlycloudy")
Precipitation - the chance of precipitation for the specified hour (0 to 100)
Temperature - Fahrenheit or metric temperature (depending on user settings)
Time - the period of the forecasted observation as a short string ("4:00 PM")
Wind Direction - the direction where the wind is coming from. Expressed as either text (N-E-S-W) or degrees (0 - 360)
Wind Speed - the projected wind speed for the hour.

Ten Day Forecast Device - The ten day forecast device exposes additional daily forecast information for the next 10 days This device type exposes eight (8) pieces of information for each of the next 10 daily periods:

Conditions - a short string describing the weather ("Partly Cloudy")
Icon - the period of the forecasted observation as a short string ("4:00 PM")
Day - the weekday name
High - Fahrenheit or Celsius temperature (depending on user settings)
Low - Fahrenheit or Celsius temperature (depending on user settings)
Precipitation - chance of precipitation in percent
Wind Direction - the direction where the wind is coming from. Expressed as either text (N-E-S-W) or degrees (0 - 360)
Wind Speed - the projected wind speed for the hour. (User configurable for average or maximum speed)

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Posted on
Sun Jan 04, 2015 7:27 pm
DaveL17 offline
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Posts: 6744
Joined: Aug 20, 2013
Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Re: How To: WUnderground Forecasts

Here's an example of how the data are exposed:
Screen Shot 2015-01-04 at 7.20.06 PM.png
Screen Shot 2015-01-04 at 7.20.06 PM.png (90.16 KiB) Viewed 1857 times

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