New www.atweather.org for 2016

[zepphead80]

Good afternoon trail friends and family,

I'm pleased to announce that I just went live with an update to www.atweather.org.

Over the course of the 2015 season, the site received over 100,000 page views of actual forecasts. For this upcoming season, given the increase in the number of hikers expected, I felt it important to make a couple of enhancements:

• A drop-down list with states which filters the 285 entry shelter list, so that it isn't necessary to do so much scrolling
• A discussion of how probably of precipitation works
• New aesthetics
• Links to Leave No Trace principles and to the AT Conservancy site

Please note that if you had bookmarks to specific locations, they will no longer function since the URL structure of the site changed slightly.

During my thru-hike this year, a lot of folks personally thanked me for the website. I really appreciate that people have found it useful. Please spread the word and feel free to reach out with any questions that you have.

Regards,

Pat ("Zen" 2015)

[Skinny Rooster]

I checked the site often for weather forecasts on my thru this past year; so thank you. Sorry I didn't get to meet you and thank you personally.

[capehiker]

Thanks for the great site. I use it all the time.

[MuddyWaters]

Thanks. I use it as well often.
You could generate ad income from landing page....

[chknfngrs]

Great resource- thanks for sharing

[mtntopper]

Very nice. Thank you. Is there an app. for phones?

[hooshr]

Thank you for site. Use it often

[Dogwood]

Pat, how are you determining live time AT location specific weather for locations that can be more than 15+ miles away from the nearest local public available public weather forecasts? Did you assemble the AT site specific weather from NOAA by extrapolation from near often OFF AT sites?

[gwb]

I used this all the time on my last section hike! I also gave the link to my Wife, Friends and Family so they can get an idea of the weather I am dealing with. Very helpful and easy to use. Great job!

[zepphead80]

Pat, how are you determining live time AT location specific weather for locations that can be more than 15+ miles away from the nearest local public available public weather forecasts? Did you assemble the AT site specific weather from NOAA by extrapolation from near often OFF AT sites?

When a selection is made from the drop down list, the lat/lon coordinates for that particular location is sent to NOAA, which returns the weather forecast for that specific set of lat/lon numbers. There is no extrapolation.

Also bear in mind that I'm only showing a forecast, not current conditions for which one would need the nearest forecast office or Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS).

[Dogwood]

When a selection is made from the drop down list, the lat/lon coordinates for that particular location is sent to NOAA, which returns the weather forecast for that specific set of lat/lon numbers.

Thanks for answering my question. I didn't know NOAA would do a forecast for a specific given lat/long.

[elWiesel]

Any chance of adding a °Celsius and Km/H or Beuford-Option?(Primarily the Temp. though, calculation °F to °C is really weird)
Because the page looks really great, but for someone not from the US it´s also a bit: "The Numbers, what do they mean?"

[zepphead80]

Good morning all,

I just want folks to know that I have been making some server side modifications to www.atweather.org that won't impact how the page looks or functions, but will modify the URL structure of the site. If you had a specific location bookmarked before, it will break. You'll need to select the location again and re-bookmark it.

I do apologize for this. The site is going to continue evolving as I continue to learn about web development. My hope though is that once the current modifications are complete, it will remain unchanged through the 2016 hiking season. Thanks all for your support of the site!

Best,

Zen

[illabelle]

Thank you for developing this site.
Please consider re-doing the TN and NC sections. It's a shared border after all.

[dbright]

I have been trying to use this site today and can not get it to show Springer mtn. It only shows deep gap when I pick ga

[zepphead80]

I have been trying to use this site today and can not get it to show Springer mtn. It only shows deep gap when I pick ga

Thanks for reporting this. I have been doing some work to the site today which may be causing this issue. Can you tell me what browser you're using? Thanks!

[Storyguy]

This is a terrific site. Thanks.

[dbright]

I use Google to get to the site. Both on my tablet as well as my computer

[zepphead80]

I use Google to get to the site. Both on my tablet as well as my computer

Right, but do you use Chrome? Firefox? Internet Explorer? The functioning of the drop down lists does not play entirely well with Internet Explorer, so I'm thinking that might be the problem, if in fact you are using IE.