How-to: Get Weather Information from WU to the ISY

[abuttino]

Weather data: Temperature, Weather Conditions (number coded, read below), heat index (feels like), wind speed, wind gust mph, visibility and, request weather data.

 

Forecast data: 4 days, including today of High/Low temps, humidity, chance of precipitation, weather conditions (listed below)

 

With each of the items listed above, you will need to add a variable to your ISY Variable table if you don't currently have them. Then follow the instructions below.

 

All major weather conditions are coded in numbers:

Clear = 0

Partly Cloudy = 1

Mostly Cloudy = 2

Drizzle = 3

Rain = 4

Snow = 5

Thunderstorms = 6

 

You will also need an Weather Undergroud API key to be input in the Setup folder..

 

You can apply here and it is given immediately. Name your application anything you want.

 

Warning, do not schedule weather data updates more than every 15 minutes.. You'll lose a "raindrop"

 

Here is the URL to get an API Key:

http://www.wunderground.com/?apiref=7265e181be6dfde1

***************************

The Intro:

 

I've noticed that a lot of people have suffered through the outage of the Weatherbug module and I developed a set of macros to use with EventGhost and a specialized ISY plugin that I modified to allow weather data to be sent to your ISY.

 

So, here we go!

 

1. To start with, download EventGhost from

http://eventghost.org.

 

• Next download the file at the bottom of this post, then extract it a new folder.
   
  

1. Move the "pVar" and "ISYEvent" folders to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Eventghost\plugins\" for x64 systems and "C:\Program Files\Eventghost\plugins\" for 32 bit systems

 

• Move the "WUDataRetrieval" xml file to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Eventghost\" for x64 systems and "C:\Program Files\Eventghost\" for 32 bit systems

 

 

• Open EventGhost for the first time move your mouse to "File" and "Open" and find "WUDataRetrieval" then click the "Open" button

 

• Configure the ISY plugin with your information by double-clicking it

 

• In the "Setup" folder, double click each item and input the ISY variable for each item. Note: If you don't have a use for a variable, don't set it. I'd suggest that you don't delete the ones you don't currently have a use for, you might want them later.
   
  
  1. Make sure to put your WeatherUnderground API key and Zip Code in the setup macros.
      
     
     1. Right click on the ISY plugin and press "Disable Item" (to enable them both) you will see the red "x" disappear.
         
        
        1. Save the Eventghost configuration with the floppy disk icon on the ribbon or "File" and "Save"

   

   

  For those without the Network Module: To use "Input ISY Needs Weather Data Variable Here": This is a special variable for eventghost to recognize that your ISY needs a data update. It is best to set a variable for this so you aren't forced to run the weather yourself. You can set up a new a variable on the ISY to "Get Weather Data".. This variable, when set to "1" will force an update of all weather data. After the weather data is retrieved, the variable is set back to "0"

   

   

   

   

  Donations to abuttino@gmail.com on Paypal gladly accepted and will keep these scripts updated

   

  Thanks for checking this out..

   

  Anthony Buttino

  WeatherMacros.zip

[Mark H]

I think that either I'm misunderstanding how that works, or I didn't explain clearly what I needed to do and what my weather station is capable of.

 

As I noted, my weather station is an older model that does not publish its data to any internet service/cloud/whatever like their newer models do. Instead it has software that gathers the data from the station, then pushes that data to a website that *I* own. The software (WeatherLink) writes the web page with the data, then uploads it via FTP along with gif images of graphs for that data.

 

I do have the option of sending a summary to "APRS", but there's no controls for that, it's just a check box to send or not. And Davis does have a "WeatherLink Network" to which I could push the data, but that's a paid service which I'm not interested in.

 

So, that said.... why and how is Weather Underground involved in this? I must be missing something.

 

Thanks!

[abuttino]

Is there a certain format for this data?

 

XML, JSON?

[Mark H]

That's a good question, lol.

 

The upload to my web page is simply an index.htm and index2.htm (fancy page versus basic page) all in HTML format that the WeatherLink software creates on the fly, then uploads a refreshed set of pages and images every 10 minutes. The index pages are 15k and 4k in size. It's the small gif's that take up the most room and time to upload.

 

If you need more info than that I'd have to go dig out the manuals for the station (but I'm perfectly willing to do so!) just let me know.

[abuttino]

If you can find out if it can post to XML, that would be good

 

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

[abuttino]

New version includes 4 days of weather forecast.

[glarsen]

Hi Anthony,

Evidently I'm missing something critical here. I keep seeing the following in the log:

Read ISY Event (Very Important)
  Python Script
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       Python script "14", line 5, in 
         VarTypeNameVal = ISYPayload.split()
     AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'split'

 

I can manually execute the Get Weather Data from WeatherUnderground and it works fine. But nothing else seems to happen. I have no experience with EventGhost, so I must be missing something here. Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

Gordon

[abuttino]

I will fix it tomorrow.

[abuttino]

Ok, were you trying to manually execute that script? That error shouldn't show unless you were trying to.

 

That macro is to read data FROM the ISY automatically.

 

Set a variable on the ISY to "GetWeatherData". Get the number of the variable on the left side of the ISY variable chart.

 

In Eventghost Find "Setup" then "Input ISY Needs Weather Data Variable Here". Input the new GetWeatherData variable NUMBER in the second field.

 

Save and exit EG..

 

Open EG..

 

Set the GetWeatherData variable to 1 in the ISY, and watch it get your weather data

[glarsen]

Thanks. Figured that out on the weekend!