Greg Keogh wrote:
After an interminable search I found something dead simple, but which
is heading towards what I was after. Try this in your browser:
http://www.google.com/ig/api?weather=Moorabbin
I was surprised to find that it knew this was my local area, not
somewhere in the USA. As this article explains
<http://blog.programmableweb.com/2010/02/08/googles-secret-weather-api/>,
it’s either unofficial or not released yet. The resulting xml is a bit
inconsistent, but it’s okay for now until I finding something better.
I forgot about this web site: http://www.programmableweb.com/ which is
a good jump off point.
I’m reading the google xml with a WebRequest GetResponse stream and I
had my app using it in 10 minutes.
Greg
Heya Greg,
That xml file looks good. You can also scrape the data from ninemsn or
weatherzone.com.au
The BOM is also a really good source.
Something else worth looking at is "metar" information. It's airport
weather information done by local weather stations and used by pilots.
An example for Moorabbin is this:
http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/brief/html.asp?/cgi-bin/avreq?p01=ymmb
(if you are ever at the airport there, you can see the weather station
about 30 meters south of the control tower).
Weather information is in predictable formats with "METAR METAR YMMB
281230Z AUTO 04002KT 9999 // NCD 14/13 Q1019" being an example.
"How to read a metar"
http://www.studentpilot.com/training_aids/ground_school/article.php?ground_school_id=20
This is maybe overkill, but I thought you might find it interesting :)
Good luck :)
--
Les Hughes
[email protected]
