Topic: Displaying Weather Info on Website in Real-Time

[MichiganWX]

I apologize upfront if this question is in the wrong area, but I thought it best to start here.

The City of Manistee is intending on installing a Davis Instruments 6152C Cabled Vantage Pro2 Weather Station with Standard Radiation Shield at its new 5th Avenue Beach House.  The site has broadband internet access.

We would like to stream the weather data live to our website; www.ci.manistee.mi.us, and have it update in near realtime seamlessly.  I have been looking at Davis Instruments Weather Link and Ambient Weather's Virtual Weather Station as two potential candidates.

I have been unable to determine if it is possible to display the data directly on our site; or if I have to use a third party site ( Weatherlink.com with Weather Link) and (Weather Underground with Virtual Weather Station).

I do not want to link directly to one of these sites and show just a link on our website, but rather have the "weather output and graphics" on our site.

Any insights\suggestions\other solutions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Ed

[saratogaWX]

Hi Ed, and welcome to WXForum.net !

The Davis system is a great one, and you have a couple of choices for weather software that can provide realtime updates.  VWS has a WeatherFlash  function that will update a website with weather info, and Weather-Display has a function for WeatherDisplayLive that also updates a website in near-real-time.  The primary difference is that VWS requires an ASP or PHP script on your site to submit the data to, while Weather-Display will use FTP to submit the weather data file(s) to your website.

WeatherLink doesn't have a function for that for your website (it uploads at 1 minute intervals at the minimum), but with a WeatherUnderground rapid-fire plugin, can update the WeatherUnderground data site at near realtime rates.
You'll need the data logger capability with your Davis system, and it comes with WeatherLink (but you don't have to use WeatherLink .. you can use Weather-Display or VWS instead).

For 'live weather' info, I prefer Weather-Display over VWS for its rich feature set, and while it may be a bit tricky to set up at first due to lots of settings options, it will reliably update your site.

There are two sets of JavaScript available (one for Weather-Display, one for VWS) that allow you to easily insert markups on your website and have the weather variables updated at 5 second intervals.
Both scripts are available on my site (http://saratoga-weather.org/ ) along with templates showing the markups and other PHP scripts that might be useful for your city's site.

Hope this helps..
best regards,
Ken

[tweatherman]

Welcome aboard Ed. I'm also up here in northern MI.
www.localareaweather.com

Tim

[MesquiteWx]

Just so I am understanding this correctly this is not your weather station it is the cities correct? You just want to be able show the data from this weather station on your site with a custom look right without having to link to them? If this is all correct since you don't actually have access to the weather station and the actually software it is using then you can use Hamweather to display this information. They will need to be sending information to them and you will need to be able to add the location to the DB so it will come up. It is fully customizable where you can have it match the look of your website.

Here is my web site that is using Hamweather to display information from my Personal Weather Station.

http://www.mesquitechristmas.com/weather/hw3.php

You also have a lot of great plugins you can add and add on features to enhance the look.

[MichiganWX]

SaratogaWX,

Thanks for the reply.  It helped alot.  Just so I am clear, it appears that I need the previously mentioned Davis Weather Station, the Davis Data logger and either VWS or Weather-Display.  Did I follow you correctly?

A second related question is:  I would also like to keep a historical archive of the Weather Data captured.  I anticipate downloading this to a computer in my office.  Do one or both of the software packages that you mentioned support this?  Is one better than the other? 

Thanks again!

Ed

[MichiganWX]

Tim,

Glad to be on board.  If the City's weather station works well, I am going to be getting one for home too!

I like your website.  It looks like you are using VWS, but what do you use to show your data on\from Weather Underground?

Ed

[MesquiteWx]

SaratogaWX,

Thanks for the reply.  It helped alot.  Just so I am clear, it appears that I need the previously mentioned Davis Weather Station, the Davis Data logger and either VWS or Weather-Display.  Did I follow you correctly?

Yes that is what you need and I would use VWS since you can send to Weather Underground, CWOP, Hamweather/Weather For You. If you plan to send to the interenet then you will need the data logger.

I would also like to keep a historical archive of the Weather Data captured.

The Davis with the Weather Logger will be able to do this.

I would use Hamweather to display your weather on your site since it is a lot more customizable to the layout of your site and you can send data with VWS.

[WeatherBeacon]

I don't see that anyone has mentioned it, but if you buy the Davis WeatherLink, avoid the usb version and get serial. A LOT of people have had problems with the usb datalogger losing communication with the computer. (Then you end up contacting Davis and exchanging the usb version for the serial anyway.) You'll find a lot of posts about that problem on the forum.

Regards,

Kevin...

[MesquiteWx]

Good point, I have read a lot of things bad about the USB as well. I have no experience with the USB version but I know the serial version I am using has been solid and I have not lost connection at all.