It might be fairly simple to reverse-engineer the weather report
Dashboard item under OS X… (failing that, to just google for a
weather report API).

– N.

nick rothwell — composition, systems, performance — http://
http://www.cassiel.com

It uses files called ‘METAR.rwx’

Thats as much as i can tell you….

john.

It probably uses the data from this service:

http://adds.aviationweather.gov/java/

Ben

Visibility: \s((9{4})|(M?(\d{1,2})?\s?(\d/\d)?SM))\s
Clouds: \s((((VV|OVC|BKN|SCT|FEW)\d{3}(TCU|CB)?)|(SKC|CLR))\s)+

with love,
jim

private char[] URLReader() throws Exception // reads the metar file from the noa ftp server, and returns it as an array of chars
{
URL PAFAurl = new URL(” ftp://weather.noaa.gov/data/observations/metar/stations/PAFA .TXT “);
BufferedReader instream = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(
PAFAurl.openStream()));

char inbuffer[] = new char[2000];

instream.read(inbuffer, 0, 2000);
instream.close();

post(String.valueOf(inbuffer));

return inbuffer;
}

private void metarParser(char[] inbuffer)
{

float visfloat = 0;
int cloudint = 0; // this will range from 0 at no clouds, to 4 at OVC/VV

String inbufstring = String.valueOf(inbuffer);

CharSequence inbufcharseq = inbufstring.subSequence(0, (inbufstring.length() – 1));

Pattern p = Pattern.compile(“\s((9{4})|(M?(\d{1,2})?\s?(\d/\d)?SM))\s “);
Matcher m = p.matcher(inbufcharseq);

if (m.find())
{
String visstring = m.group().trim();
//post(“the visibility string is: “+ visstring);
if (visstring == “9999″)
{
visfloat = 9999;
} else if (visstring == “M1/4SM”) // automated stations with less than 1/4 mile vis should report this
{
visfloat = (float)0.125;
} else
{
String dummyarray[] = visstring.split(“SM”); //trim off the “SM” at the end;
String visnumberstring = dummyarray[0];
//post(“the visnumberstring is: “+visnumberstring);
String visarray[] = visnumberstring.split(“/”);
if (visarray.length > 1) //if there’s a fraction
{
Float denom = Float.valueOf(visarray[1]);
String fracarray[] = visarray[0].split(“\s”);
if (fracarray.length > 1) // if it’s a mixed number
{
Float numerator = Float.valueOf(fracarray[1]);
Float wholepart = Float.valueOf(fracarray[0]);
visfloat = wholepart.floatValue() + (numerator.floatValue() / denom.floatValue());
} else
{
Float numerator = Float.valueOf(fracarray[0]);
visfloat = numerator.floatValue() / denom.floatValue();
}

} else
{
visfloat = Float.valueOf(visarray[0]).floatValue();
}
}
} else
{
post(“couldn’t find the visibility in: ” + inbufcharseq.toString());
}

p = Pattern.compile(“\s((((VV|OVC|BKN|SCT|FEW)\d{3}(TCU|CB)?)|(SKC|CLR))\s)+ “);
m = p.matcher(inbufcharseq);
if (m.find())
{
String cloudstring = m.group().trim();
//post(“the cloud cover string is: “+ cloudstring);

String cloudstrings[] = cloudstring.split(“\s”);

for (int i = 0; i < cloudstrings.length; i++)
{
char c = cloudstrings[i].charAt(0);
if ((c == ‘V’)||(c == ‘O’))
{
cloudint = 4;
} else if (c == ‘B’)
{
if (cloudint < 3)
{
cloudint = 3;
}
} else if ((c == ‘S’)&&(cloudstrings[i].charAt(1) == ‘C’)) //to make sure it’s SCT and not SKC
{
if (cloudint < 2)
{
cloudint = 2;
}
} else if (c == ‘F’)
{
if (cloudint == 0)
{
cloudint = 1;
}
} else
{
post(“malformed cloud string:” + cloudstrings[i]);
}
}
//post(“the cloud cover int is: “+ String.valueOf(cloudint));
} else
{
post(“couldn’t find the cloud cover in: ” + inbufcharseq.toString());
}

outlet(1, cloudint);
outlet(0, visfloat);

}

public void update()
{
if (busyflag == 0)
{
busyflag = 1;
//create a new thread to do the weather stuff. ftp takes a long time
Thread t = new Thread()
{
public void run()
{
boolean successfulread = true;

try
{
post(“starting the read/parse”);
metarParser(URLReader());
}
catch (Exception e)
{
post(e.toString());
}

busyflag = 0;
}
};
t.start(); //start the thread executing

} else
{
post(“busy. call back later.”);
}
}

> And I’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to parse this out with Java.

Pretty easy; it’s not too onerous to link up MXJ, HTTP fetches and
dom4j to interpret incoming XML via XPath.

I’d do it, but why do I care about the weather in America? :-)

nick rothwell — composition, systems, performance — http://
http://www.cassiel.com

Because when Bush sneezes, Blair says “I’m with you”?

(Sorry, it was such an easy shot)

– P.

————– http://www.bek.no/~pcastine/Litter/ ————–
Peter Castine | ^
| Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter
pcastine@gmx.net |
pcastine@bek.no | iCE: Sequencing, Recording, and Interface Building
4-15@kagi.com | for Max/MSP
| Extremely cool
| http://www.dspaudio.com
| http://www.dspaudio.com/software/software.html

http://www.rssweather.com/dir/

mzed

With jit.uldl, my max patches now know the weather. My solutions are here:

http://homepage.mac.com/mikezed/weather.zip

And I’m still cleaing it up.

Still hoping for a non-Jitter method.

best,

mzed

Michael, my machine reports an error in finding your zip, could you
paste it as text

thanks, Falk

Sorry, I messed up. It should work now.

mz

private char[] URLReader() throws Exception // reads the metar file from the noaa ftp server, and returns it as an array of chars
{
URL PAFAurl = new URL(” ftp://weather.noaa.gov/data/observations/metar/stations/PAFA .TXT “);
BufferedReader instream = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(
PAFAurl.openStream()));

char inbuffer[] = new char[2000];

instream.read(inbuffer, 0, 2000);
instream.close();

post(String.valueOf(inbuffer));

return inbuffer;
}