Forecast
Introduction
CumulusUtils has a minimal forecast module. Every weather site must have some kind of forecasting so the choice has been made to take four different existing possibilities and present the forecast of the users choice. It is not a true forecasting system.
Operation
This module is included in the website. When needed as a single output the following command is given:
utils/bin/cumulusutils.exe Forecast
Output
The output is the file: forecast.txt
Inifile parameters
[Forecasts] ForecastSystem=SpotWx (default, other possibilities: Yourweather, Norway, WxSim) SevenDayPredictionURL= NorwegianURL= WXsimURL=
Inner working
SpotWx
When setting the ForecastSystem to SpotWx, the prediction for the latitude and longitude of the station is fetched and displayed in an iframe.
The iframe is formed as: <iframe src='{SpotwxPredictionURL}' frameborder='0' style='border: 0; width:100%; height: 75vh;'></iframe> and written to the output file.
Yourwether
When setting the ForecastSystem to Yourweather, the user must have:
- Go to yourweather.co.uk
- Scroll down until you see (in a bordered block): “API - Access to xml”;
- Click on it, register, and follow the instructions;
- Once on the API page, choose your location;
- Choose the XML API, address 1: “Address 1: XML file with the 7-day forecast and general daily information”;
- Fill in that link, in the cumlusutils.ini for the parameter: SevenDayPredictionURL. In the section [Forecast]. You may have to run CumulusUtils with the argument Forecast one time to see that parameter.
When CumulusUtils is run with the argument forecast, it fetched the corresponding XML with the ECMWF model forecast and reworks that into a table and written to the outputfile. The icons the user installed in CUicons are used.
Norway
When setting the ForecastSystem to Norway, the prediction URL as given in NorwegianURL is fetched and displayed in an iframe.
NOTE: The current renewed site of the Norwegian service have set the X-Frame-Options to SAMEORIGIN meaning that you can only display a forecast as a page from their site. The system as used within CumulusUtils therefore does not work anymore. Only users who already have their URL from the old site can continue using it. I don't know until when.
WxSim
When setting the ForecastSystem to WxSim, the WXsimURL is used to display in an iframe.
The iframe is formed as: <iframe src='{WxsimPredictionURL}' frameborder='0' style='border: 0;width:100%; height: 75vh;'></iframe> and written to the output file.