A simple weather website

[zepphead80]

Hi all,

(This is a cross-post from the Class of 2015 threads - mods can delete this if it's redundant)

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. 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!

[Colter]

That looks like a great, useful idea Lefty! I wish I was hiking the AT so I could use it.

Have a great hike!

[Joey C]

Looks great! Thanks.

[Hikes in Rain]

Hi, Lefty. Thanks for this; I'll be using it.

[zepphead80]

Good morning,

Given the more severe than usual winter weather that we're having on the East Coast, and that some of the early birds are already starting the trail, I wanted to bring this post back to the top of the pile and do some more promotion not just for my weather site (www.atweather.org), but also another great resource: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...tweather&hl=en. It's a mobile weather app for Android users, similar in nature to what my site provides with a few more options for accessing the information and also current conditions.

I have no idea if the developer is still maintaining it, and I am not able to try it out myself as I'm an iPhone user, but I wanted to put it out there for people to check out. For the foreseeable future, my site will be maintained as a conventional website so as to retain functionality across platforms. Thanks again and be safe out there!

Best,

Lefty

[hikernutcasey]

Thanks for reposting as I missed it earlier. Very handy indeed.

[misterfloyd]

Man that is really cool,

Thanks for doing this and making everyone aware of this. This will help out greatly.

One more reason for me to go from my clamshell phone to a smartphone!!

Best,
Floyd

[Trillium]

I've put your URL into my iphone notes for future reference. Thanks!

[zepphead80]

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 (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

[Captain Bluebird]

I certainly appreciate your efforts in developing this website. One can not have too much weather related info while out on the AT. I do like how your site provides a multi day forecast while the AT Weather App on Google simply provides the current day and the following day. The current 'droid based weather app provides the current temp and low and high temp forecast. It also adjusts temperature based on the elevation for the particular shelter. I noticed there is a 5 to 10 degree difference on the temp forecast between your site and the Appalachian Trail Weather app. Does your site take into account the elevation? Just wandering.....

[zepphead80]

The NWS forecasts definitely take elevation into account, but I don't know exactly how it gets factored in. The rule of thumb temperature adjustment for height, while really good at giving a general sense of what the temperature will do over a big elevation change - is probably a simplification of a more detailed method for figuring the high versus low elevation temperature difference.

Anyway, I definitely think the Google app is pretty good. I don't know exactly how it sources it's forecasts but it is laid out really well and presents great information to have at hand. I'd definitely get it if I were an Android user.

[Siarl]

This is a great site. Thank you. I watch the weather alot and though I am not a meteorologist, I have picked up a few things along the way from just simply trying to figure out our hiking or traveling plans for a given day. I live at 2800 ft right outside Big Bend National Park. Inside the park the Chisos Mts are between 5000 and 7000 ft roughly. Something to take into consideration when attempting to calculate a temperature variation is the unpredictability of it. Elevation may give you a rough estimate most of the time, sometimes, the temperature may be just the opposite. A temperature inversion sometimes will mean the cold will be at a lower elevation and the upper elevation will remain considerably warmer. We encounter that situation here on many occasions and it catches folks unaware.

[Captain Bluebird]

The NWS forecasts definitely take elevation into account, but I don't know exactly how it gets factored in. The rule of thumb temperature adjustment for height, while really good at giving a general sense of what the temperature will do over a big elevation change - is probably a simplification of a more detailed method for figuring the high versus low elevation temperature difference.

Anyway, I definitely think the Google app is pretty good. I don't know exactly how it sources it's forecasts but it is laid out really well and presents great information to have at hand. I'd definitely get it if I were an Android user.

I will take both with me! It will be interesting to see how each fare in the forecast. Thanks again for developing your www.atweather.org site!

[coffee cup]

Great site. Thanks.