This command-line utility is intended to provide quick access to current weather conditions and forecasts. Presently, it is capable of returning data for localities throughout the USA and many parts of the rest of the World by retrieving and formatting decoded METARs (Meteorological Aerodrome Reports) from NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and forecasts (primarily USA-only) from the NWS (National Weather Service). The tool is written to function in the same spirit as other command-line informational utilities like cal(1), calendar(1) and dict(1). It can retrieve arbitrary weather data via specific command-line switches (station ID, city, state), or aliases can be configured system wide and on a per-user basis. It can be freely used and redistributed under the terms of the BSD License.
Additional documentation:
My girlfriend had a long commute to/from work and school, and often wanted to check the weather both for home and her office. Unfortunately, starting a Web browser, pulling up a weather site, entering multiple ZIP codes and waiting for them to load is time-consuming for the marginally-impatient. Since she tended to stay logged into a shell server most of the time, I figured I'd install a quick command-line tool to retrieve weather info for her commute, but to my surprise, a quick search turned up little that met my basic requirements:
A tarball for the most recent version of the weather utility can be had here:
Alternatively, Debian and Ubuntu users can install the weather-util package from any official package repository mirror or (the most recent release) from this one.
Installation from the tarball is trivial--see the included INSTALL file for details. Further, usage is remarkably simple... for example, if I want to see weather information for my default area:
fungi@cthulhu:~$ weather Current conditions at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (KRDU) Last updated Mar 26, 2006 - 11:51 AM EST / 2006.03.26 1651 UTC Wind: from the NW (320 degrees) at 9 MPH (8 KT):0 Sky conditions: mostly cloudy Temperature: 48.0 F (8.9 C) Relative Humidity: 38%Optionally, conditions and forecast for work:
fungi@cthulhu:~$ weather -f work Current conditions at Piedmont Triad International Airport (KGSO) Last updated Mar 26, 2006 - 11:54 AM EST / 2006.03.26 1654 UTC Wind: from the WNW (300 degrees) at 13 MPH (11 KT):0 Sky conditions: mostly cloudy Temperature: 46.0 F (7.8 C) Relative Humidity: 38% City Forecast for Greensboro, NC Issued Sunday morning - Mar 26, 2006 Sunday... Partly cloudy, high 52, 10% chance of precipitation. Sunday night... Low 32, 5% chance of precipitation. Monday... Sunny, high 62, 5% chance of precipitation. Monday night... Low 37. Tuesday... High 65.Or verbose mode for a couple full decoded METARs:
fungi@cthulhu:~$ weather -v avl gso Asheville, Asheville Regional Airport, NC, United States (KAVL) 35-25-55N 082-32-15W 670M Mar 26, 2006 - 11:54 AM EST / 2006.03.26 1654 UTC Wind: from the N (350 degrees) at 18 MPH (16 KT) gusting to 25 MPH (22 KT):0 Visibility: 10 mile(s):0 Sky conditions: mostly cloudy Temperature: 42.1 F (5.6 C) Dew Point: 21.9 F (-5.6 C) Relative Humidity: 44% Pressure (altimeter): 30.17 in. Hg (1021 hPa) ob: KAVL 261654Z 35016G22KT 10SM BKN038 BKN045 06/M06 A3017 RMK AO2 PK WND 33028/1615 SLP224 T00561056 cycle: 17 Greensboro, Piedmont Triad International Airport, NC, United States (KGSO) 36-05-51N 079-56-37W 275M Mar 26, 2006 - 11:54 AM EST / 2006.03.26 1654 UTC Wind: from the WNW (300 degrees) at 13 MPH (11 KT):0 Visibility: 10 mile(s):0 Sky conditions: mostly cloudy Temperature: 46.0 F (7.8 C) Dew Point: 21.9 F (-5.6 C) Relative Humidity: 38% Pressure (altimeter): 30.13 in. Hg (1020 hPa) ob: KGSO 261654Z 30011KT 10SM BKN060 08/M06 A3013 RMK AO2 SLP205 T00781056 cycle: 17