View Full Version : A simple weather website
zepphead80
02-10-2015, 15:02
Hi all,
First off, I'm "Lefty"...starting in Amicalola on or about 4/8, and I really looking forward to meeting all of you.
I just want to do a little publicity here for a website that I built: www.atweather.org (http://www.atweather.org). It's very simple. The drop down list contains all 285 shelters and campsites along the trail. Make a selection, and the official National Weather Service text forecast will display for that location. You can sort the list by NOBO, SOBO or alphabetically. If it ends up getting used by a lot of folks then I'll look into migrating it to a mobile app.
This is certainly not meant to be the be all and end all of weather information, but rather something that you can add to your weather portfolio.
Good luck to us all, see you out there!
Lefty
PS...give me a shout out if you're starting in early April!
Traveler
02-10-2015, 15:42
Really cool site here, good luck in your trek!
illabelle
02-10-2015, 16:31
I like it, Zepphead! Simple, quick-loading, and good info.
Ken.davidson
02-10-2015, 21:55
Thank you for sharing the link, seems very nice At my initial look.'I will use in the near future.
Harrison Bergeron
02-11-2015, 09:19
Love it! How accurate is it? The best I'd been able to find was weather at a nearby town, which doesn't say much about a mountain shelter that might be 2000' higher. How did you get weather from a place where there is no measurement device? Do you interpolate it somehow, using the difference in altitude? Or does the weather service actually take measurements on the AT?
Now, if I could just find a HISTORY of the weather at the lower AT shelters for April-May, I'd know if I can leave the puffy vest at home!
rocketsocks
02-11-2015, 11:01
Very nice, book marked. thank you. Great luck with your hike.
zepphead80
02-11-2015, 11:08
Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the feedback. And please, if you have outlets for spreading the word about the site, please do!
To address your question Harrison...essentially, weather forecasts are generated by computer models that output a multitude of different parameters for each grid-point in the US (I think the spacing between grid points is something like 5 km). There are now dozens of models that do this, each with certain strengths, capabilities and degree of area and scale. The forecasters look at all of these models and use their knowledge of each one's strengths and weaknesses to make a blend of the results. So while the forecast at any given specific point does have indirect forecaster input, the numbers (such as temperature and probability of precipitation) were generated numerically by the models.
To find weather history, I'd see if there are any automated stations (called ASOS units) nearby the trail. I don't have a link to point you to right now, but I'll check up on it later.
This is a great tool. This needs to be put in sticky form. Thanks for your work
Heybob_70
02-22-2015, 06:36
Wow! What a great website. Thank you so much for providing this to everyone.
zepphead80
02-22-2015, 11:26
Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words. With the winter being a little more severe than normal this year, and people already starting the trail, access to quality weather information is important. To that end I'd like to share a link to an Android mobile app that I came across, which, in addition to www.atweather.org, really helps pinpoint the weather at your location:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atweather&hl=en
I haven't been able to try it because I'm an iPhone user, but for those of you out there on Android phones it's a great resource. In the meantime, I'm probably going to keep www.atweather.org as a conventional website so that it can be accessed across platforms.
Thanks again and be safe out there.
Lefty
overthinker
02-23-2015, 12:01
atweather.org doesn't seem to load in Chrome on my Android phone, it just goes to some developer notice on pythonanywhere.com. Anyone else having that problem?
zepphead80
02-25-2015, 10:09
Hi overthinker,
It's because I don't have a redirect setup yet...you need to use www.atweather.org (http://www.atweather.org). Hopefully I'll be able to get the redirect working soon so that folks can just type in atweather.org. Sorry about that!
Lefty
Lefty,
This is a great leap forward in the weather and planning tools available for A.T. hikers! Thank you for all your work to set up this website.
Laurie P.
ATC
Bigfoot86
02-28-2015, 00:00
Nice weather site for the at I'll be using it. Good luck on the hike
zepphead80
03-02-2015, 10:04
A few people have asked about finding historical weather data for a given location. While such data is not point-specific like the weather forecasts, you can find lots of climate numbers for a given area. If you scroll to the bottom of the text forecast on my site you'll see a link to the National Weather Service forecast office for the area in question. Clicking on that will redirect you to their page where there is a "Climate and Past Weather" link. That will take you to a page that looks like this (http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=okx) (my local NWS office at home is New York City but each forecast office has a page like this). At some point I'll make a link for this on the site, but for now that's how you can navigate to historical information.
As always, stay warm and be safe!
Lefty
grandvizier
03-04-2015, 01:03
Nice work Lefty. I think in it's simplicity it works really well. As mentioned already, the required www subdomain threw me off when I tried opening it on my phone.
I'll probably see you out there, as my start date is April 11th.
Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words. With the winter being a little more severe than normal this year, and people already starting the trail, access to quality weather information is important. To that end I'd like to share a link to an Android mobile app that I came across, which, in addition to www.atweather.org (http://www.atweather.org), really helps pinpoint the weather at your location:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atweather&hl=en
I haven't been able to try it because I'm an iPhone user, but for those of you out there on Android phones it's a great resource. In the meantime, I'm probably going to keep www.atweather.org (http://www.atweather.org) as a conventional website so that it can be accessed across platforms.
Thanks again and be safe out there.
Lefty
Shutter here, creator of Appalachian Trail Weather
Thanks for the shout out Lefty. I was sent an e-mail about my app from this thread. It's actually good to meet you, I've seen your website quite a bit, needless to say, I like it.
Harrison has a real concern though, the weather stations in town could be thousands of feet below a ridge. For that scenario I went though and calculated the lapse rate between the altitude of the weather station and the altitude of the shelter I use as a reference point. It's really not that much of an issue except for the Smokeys and the White Mountains where a 4000 ft difference can yield a 15 degree change. If it's 40 degrees at the weather station, but 25 up on the ridge, you've got a problem on your hands!
Weather is definitely a factor on the A.T. Make sure you all make smart decisions and look out for other hikers. You're going to hike rain or shine, my app and Lefty's website will just help you make a decision to do big miles while the weather is good or take a much justified zero if the weather is crap.
-Shutter
All The Way
03-04-2015, 22:29
Hi Lefty,
Thanks for the info. It is another good tool to have.
I will be starting my hike about 2 weeks before you, but maybe we will meet-up.
Good Luck,
All The Way
xrayextra
03-04-2015, 22:33
This is terrific! Thanks, I'm bookmarking it :)
zepphead80
03-05-2015, 08:53
Shutter here, creator of Appalachian Trail Weather
Thanks for the shout out Lefty. I was sent an e-mail about my app from this thread. It's actually good to meet you, I've seen your website quite a bit, needless to say, I like it.
Harrison has a real concern though, the weather stations in town could be thousands of feet below a ridge. For that scenario I went though and calculated the lapse rate between the altitude of the weather station and the altitude of the shelter I use as a reference point. It's really not that much of an issue except for the Smokeys and the White Mountains where a 4000 ft difference can yield a 15 degree change. If it's 40 degrees at the weather station, but 25 up on the ridge, you've got a problem on your hands!
Weather is definitely a factor on the A.T. Make sure you all make smart decisions and look out for other hikers. You're going to hike rain or shine, my app and Lefty's website will just help you make a decision to do big miles while the weather is good or take a much justified zero if the weather is crap.
-Shutter
I was hoping to meet you! Thanks for responding to the thread, I really appreciate it. I might private message you at some point about the mobile app development process. I've been a programmer for a long time but am pretty new to web development. I definitely want to make this into an iOS app eventually, but constraints on my time are becoming tighter the closer I get to starting the trail.
Re: elevation...I have to research it but the NOAA forecasts certainly take it into account. I'm not sure how it's parameterized but it definitely gets factored in. Common sense goes a long way though...if it's really crummy at 2,000' elevation, it almost certainly is worse at 4,500' or 5,000' - not just in terms of temperature but also wind.