New weather source for South Africa

[craigiecraigie4]

Hi Guys,

I'm helping the SA Weather Service which is the ONLY accurate source of weather for SA & SADC (all these global servers are so appaulingly wrong that most of us SA's just disable the wether tab in our HTC).

They are keen to provide a weather source to the public for use on various mobile devices. Currently they generate an extensive xml file 3x per day, and all I need to do is help them specify the new file format.

I have some questions I am hoping someone here can help with:

There must be a standard format for these information sources, which I am guessing is am xml file. Ideally this will be small to minimise bandwidth served. Where can I find this schema?
Are there various standards for various apps, or do most weather apps use the same standard?
Can we just put this xml into a public directory, or do we have to have some sort of web service running?
Is it possible to make the HTC Home plugin use our data source - the hacks I've seen are related to adding different cities, not changing the data source?
Finally, I'd like to hear which apps you guys use that have the ability for one to specify a different data source. We're powerless if the app only allows a choice of 2 or 3 Russian servers.


Oh yeah, does anyone have any insight into Nokia and Symbian weather apps? If we crack this for HTC/WM, will the others work too?

[absorber786]

Hey...this sounds brilliant...

Sorry..not gonna be much help with your questions...but wishing you the best of luck..

Wont a normal RSS feed work well based on a chosen city? I somehow think that the web service would be the best option...

Maybe this (http://developer.yahoo.com/weather/) might help

[jpgrobler]

GREAT!!!
I do hope to see this soon!!!

[^^rac]

Howsit to fellow South Africans!

Im not into the weather much, Im happy With the results from SPB weather.
I know that there is not much cities supported, like in Natal, you can only get Durban, but what if you are in Margate!

I think the most of the apps rely on Yahoo Weather source........It uses .xml coding, but im not sure about the rest!!!

Howsit peeeps!

[craigiecraigie4]

SAWS is the ONLY source of accurate weather. All other sources come from global models - usually Euro or US centric. They are appaulingly wrong for SA, for many reasons; they do not consider topography in the slightest, and their resolution over Africa is around 100km vs 4km for local models.

You will often see temp projections of 15'C to 25'C when SAWS is saying 5 to 15. How different is that! You will see clear skys when you are sitting here looking at a dense cloud bank from George thro to PTA. They're all basically SO bad they are less than useless (less, cos they make you think you know what's happening).

RSS feeds are an easy option, but we all like our cutsie phone apps, so I want to get in line with those. Ideally I want to find a freeware app, with awesome capabilities, and make sure SAWS provide data for that. Then we can post it widely here as the prefered SA option.

C'mon guys, who's developed weather apps and has some insight? I have to move fast before SAWS lose interest.

[Moe5508]

I'd love to help but have absolutely no clue on this! I use Pocket Weather and HTC Weather on my device and yeah, the forecasts are appallingly wrong 90% of the time! Hope you can get this up and running with SAWS...

[absorber786]

Is this only aimed at WM users??? or for the broader public....

Was the link posted above useful?? (http://developer.yahoo.com/weather/)

As an alternative slightly of the track...what if the developed a mobile website...lightweight...easily available...the limitation could be personalisation...

[craigiecraigie4]

Sorry, yahoo link is to get their RSS feed. Their data is sourced from nternational model - all of which exclude the topography of SA (if you live in CT you can't even begin to use them).

As for min-web-site, that's a fallback. But people really do prefer an on-screen plugin, with the ability to click for more details. I'm looking for apps that support clicking thro to radar images (live stoom tracking to resched your braai!), weather and traffic cams (SAWS has them all!), and of course the up-to-the-minute data tables with forecasts etc.

Apps exist, but not sure which allow you to select data sources.

[absorber786]

Apps exist, but not sure which allow you to select data sources.

which apps are these......

[jpgrobler]

HI

Any news on this? need people to test etc?

Thanks