Author Topic: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice  (Read 4689 times)

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Offline weather34

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dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« on: May 16, 2018, 05:16:27 AM »
personally glad to see the back of wunderground especially their API data .

was made aware of this morning via email and thanks mcrossley for confirming.

To improve our services and enhance the relationship with our users, we will no longer provide free weather API keys as part of our program. If you have been directed to download our Weather Underground free API key by a third party provider, please contact your vendor for resolution.


https://apicommunity.wunderground.com/weatherapi/topics/weather-underground-api-changes



Offline CNYWeather

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2018, 08:05:26 AM »
It was only a matter of time. Figures
Tony




Offline weather34

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2018, 08:41:48 AM »
absolutely anything that is free will always become unusable ,unsustainable in the future and no one likes suddenly having to pay for something they have used for years FOR FREE etc..the days of free reliable data is over ,if you want reliable quality data then its coming at a cost.

i can see it now thousands of developers for templates,apps all searching for the next best free source and then watch those sources crumble under the overload in the future.


the free API key currently shows only this data being made available all other data like 10 day forecast hourly is now at cost

free ?? STRATUS PLAN
Geolookup
Autocomplete
Current conditions
3-day forecast summary
Astronomy
Almanac for today


PAID CUMULUS PLAN
Geolookup
Autocomplete
Current conditions
3-day forecast summary
Astronomy
Almanac for today
10-day forecast summary
Hourly 1-day forecast
Satellite thumbnail
Dynamic Radar image
Severe alerts
Tides and Currents
Tides and Currents Raw
Severe alerts



Offline mcrossley

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2018, 11:00:46 AM »
Well, depends on your definition of 'free'. We are providing much of the data to WU for 'free' which they are then using to create commercial products. So the 'free' API I see as a quid pro quo for the data provided.

My 'free' API is Cumulus Plan, you have 30 'free' raindrops per month - I have only ever used 1, once! and that was during testing.
Mark

Offline weather34

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2018, 11:12:46 AM »
perhaps this needs clarifying as to how they determine what is free , log into mine its shows paid account . my account was downgraded to stratus today perhaps its a slow change rollout but being its wunderground who knows ...


if you logout and click API at the bottom of https://www.wunderground.com

your presented with this


Offline mcrossley

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2018, 11:26:57 AM »
Hmm, I'll wait and see what happens then, my plan is still listed as "Cumulus Developer"...
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Mark

Offline weather34

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2018, 11:28:58 AM »
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here is mine used to be cumulus


Offline Dane_B

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2018, 12:10:33 PM »
Here's mine. I'll wait and see....

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Offline prestwickwx

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2018, 12:12:28 PM »
Brian,

Mine is still listed as ANVIL PLAN.

Chuck

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« Last Edit: May 16, 2018, 12:20:12 PM by prestwickwx »

Online saratogaWX

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2018, 12:40:12 PM »
Mine is still Cumulus Developer too.

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So sad they're closing out the folks who provide them data.  I may have to discontinue the WU specific scripts (WU-forecast.php) and seek an alternative provider for worldwide forecasts.  Sigh...

Ken True/Saratoga, CA, USA main site: saratoga-weather.org
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Offline weather34

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2018, 01:16:48 PM »
Mine is still Cumulus Developer too.

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So sad they're closing out the folks who provide them data.  I may have to discontinue the WU specific scripts (WU-forecast.php) and seek an alternative provider for worldwide forecasts.  Sigh...

ken personally i feel any free api sooner or later will hit the overload issues ,  vreihen sent me a link today  from the popular yr.no

it basically summed up free data services somewhere along the line someones paying for it be it the provider or the user its no longer sustainable to do these things for free long term .

https://om.yr.no/info/verdata/free-weather-data/

here is the interesting part

We are sorry that this information is not available in English. Yr is financed by Norwegian tax and license fee payers, and our main focus is Norwegian forecasts and services, although we do offer forecasts for every country and all major cities of the world. We are afraid to get overloaded with traffic if we translate the guidelines and promote the free weather data service in English.

darksky,apixu or checkout checkwx.com using metar,taf human readeable json output.

ive tried them all and results vary based on end user locations especially darksky

currently testing https://www.apixu.com/ i tried it last year and cant remember why i didnt continue sure i will remember when something arises ..



 



Offline weather34

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #11 on: May 17, 2018, 12:48:48 AM »
and the plot thickens

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Offline mbrady

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #12 on: May 18, 2018, 11:28:51 AM »
Yeah, that's the real kicker. Having a free tier no longer even matters if they don't even provide PWS data any more...

Offline SteveFitz1

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #13 on: May 18, 2018, 11:58:37 AM »
Perhaps WU is going the same route as Weatherbug just did. That is, use CWOP data via MADIS. I suspect a large percentage of PWS users that send data to WU also send to CWOP. So WU could get their weather data from a single source and not have to deal with us PWS owners anymore.

Steve

Offline Cutty Sark Sailor

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #14 on: May 18, 2018, 01:20:32 PM »
Frankfort Weather DOES NOT send data directly to WeatherUnderground or any other commercial provider. Many have demonstrated inaccurate and unreliable data presentation, poor response to inquiries, and erratic performance of associated APIs. PWS operators have pride, and considerable time and monetary investment in their weather data and such issues degrade those investments. Further, Frankfort Weather does not endorse, encourage or condone the blatant commercial 'scraping' and 'marketing' of Personal Weather Station and Site Products world-wide without permission and acknowledgement.
http://frankfortweather.us/wxabout.php
Get your LOGOS here...
« Last Edit: May 18, 2018, 01:27:48 PM by Cutty Sark Sailor »
 


Offline doubleohwhatever

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #15 on: May 20, 2018, 05:32:04 PM »
Well, I knew it was only at matter of time after the buyout.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a replacement radar gif service? See the attached image for what I'm referring to.

Offline Farmtalk

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #16 on: May 20, 2018, 05:46:02 PM »
If you have the money, I would recommend GRLevel 3 ($80).

I was thinking at some point there was a script specifically for making gifs with the images, but I am currently not seeing it.

However, if you have FTP, you can upload the images and create an sequence with the images to create an animation.

If you're looking to keep it free, you can find an NWS radar and save the link of the animation and use that.
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Offline doubleohwhatever

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #17 on: May 20, 2018, 05:51:36 PM »
Yeah, I use GRLevel 3 for local viewing. I just don't want to have to have it running 24/7 to feed a website.


Also, I'm looking for an API I can feed paremeters (width, height,  zoom, storm tracks on/off, etc) like the WU gif API. Unfortunately I haven't found a service that offers that for a reasonable amount. I don't mind paying ~$10/month but most options seem to start at $35-40.

Offline weatherforyou

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #18 on: May 20, 2018, 06:00:41 PM »
AerisWeather does allow free access to their API under the developer program.  It provides 750 API accesses per day and 2500 map units per day.  It does have to be renewed every two months.

There are also other plans starting at $25 per month for API access and $50 per month for map units.

https://www.aerisweather.com/signup/


Joe Torsitano


Offline doubleohwhatever

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #19 on: May 20, 2018, 06:19:17 PM »
Aeris may be an option. I doubt I would need more than their developer tier.

Offline doubleohwhatever

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #20 on: May 20, 2018, 06:36:14 PM »
Well, so much for that. The attached 800x600 map uses 48 map units. At a six minute interval that would be 11,520 map units a day.

Back to the drawing board.

Offline Farmtalk

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #21 on: May 20, 2018, 06:40:18 PM »
Well, so much for that. The attached 800x600 map uses 48 map units. At a six minute interval that would be 11,520 map units a day.

Back to the drawing board.

I could be wrong, but I believe with Aeris, the map units are counted for the initial map created (48 units), and then it accrues based on views of the map, not the interval that the map is used.

Double check that but I used their platform for a little while about a year ago, and never went above 3,000 map units a day (still a lot).
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Offline weatherforyou

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #22 on: May 20, 2018, 07:41:52 PM »
Well, so much for that. The attached 800x600 map uses 48 map units. At a six minute interval that would be 11,520 map units a day.

Back to the drawing board.

I could be wrong, but I believe with Aeris, the map units are counted for the initial map created (48 units), and then it accrues based on views of the map, not the interval that the map is used.

Double check that but I used their platform for a little while about a year ago, and never went above 3,000 map units a day (still a lot).

That is correct.  The usage only happens when someone accesses the map, not every six minutes (unless someone is camped on the page and it auto-refreshes every six minutes).  There are also ways to significantly reduce usage, like caching and static background maps or background maps from another source (Mapbox, Google, etc.), so only the actual data tiles are retrieved when needed.  For example, on WeatherForYou.com static radar maps, which are 750x562, on a day when they were accessed 13,348 times 51,471 map units were used or an average of 3.856 tiles for each full map requested.  The smaller (255x255) map on the local forecast pages was accessed 29,513 times with a total number of map units used being 161,827 or 5.483 map tiles per page.
Joe Torsitano


Offline Farmtalk

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #23 on: May 21, 2018, 03:12:16 AM »
Well, so much for that. The attached 800x600 map uses 48 map units. At a six minute interval that would be 11,520 map units a day.

Back to the drawing board.

I could be wrong, but I believe with Aeris, the map units are counted for the initial map created (48 units), and then it accrues based on views of the map, not the interval that the map is used.

Double check that but I used their platform for a little while about a year ago, and never went above 3,000 map units a day (still a lot).

There are also ways to significantly reduce usage, like caching and static background maps or background maps from another source (Mapbox, Google, etc.), so only the actual data tiles are retrieved when needed.

That's a good idea for sure. I think I was using the standard ortho background image whenever I was using Aeris, which would likely have taken me far below the 3,000 threshold.

I wish Aeris had a lower price option on their Aeris map products. I tried it for a couple of months, and it was really nice. I just couldn't afford paying $50/month for it.
Joe Fitzwater
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Offline doubleohwhatever

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Re: dump wunderground api you may not have a choice
« Reply #24 on: May 22, 2018, 02:17:16 AM »
Alright. So I discovered that there really isn't a service that provides customizable static radar images at a reasonable cost. So I rolled my own. See the attached images.

Features:
A) Output as high quality PNG, any quality (0-100) JPG or animated GIF
B) Add markers (up to ten and marker is customizable) based on given lat/lon coordinates
C) Choose base map color (as many options as I want to add)
D) Choose overlays (counties, city names, etc)

How it works:
1) The base maps and overlays are pre-rendered tiles stored locally
2) gen.php pulls the needed tiles (base, overlay, radar), adds the markers images and then generates the static image

Radar at the moment:

Step 1: A Nexrad III composite image is pulled every five minutes from here: http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/data/gis/images/4326/USCOMP/

Step 2: Composite image is converted to tiles and stored locally


Radar data going forward (once I have time):

Step 1: A Nexrad III composite image will be generated via GEMPAK every five minutes. Radar data pulled from Allison House.

Step 2: Composite image is converted to tiles and stored locally


Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a web service that provides these images?

It would have to be a paid service (to cover server costs) but it wouldn't be expensive. I'm thinking something like $1/GB of images in 5GB blocks. No "use it or lose it" and no monthly fees. Purchase a data block and pay nothing else unless you want to purchase another block once you're out of data.

For example, the attached gen.jpg is a 720p (1280x720) JPEG at 75% quality and it's about 137KB. $5 would get you ~ 38,000 such images generated and served.

Thoughts?
« Last Edit: May 22, 2018, 03:09:58 AM by doubleohwhatever »