Better weather forecasts

[Paul Weijers]

To all RC nuts:

The weather prediction on TV are not particularly useful for pilots large or small. Here is a better place:

www.wunderground.com

You can get a recent (1 hour) update for YUL, Dorval Airport. That's close enough to WIMAC to be useful. Windspeed and direction, visibility, ceiling etc. . Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.
Paul Weijers (42097)

[Burning Head]

Cool Paul,I use the radar from environement Canada, but I will try this one. Thanks:cool:

[Jeremy Cartlidge]

You can get the current ATIS information for YUL at 514 633 3037.

[morse]

Hi Guy"s you can also pick up a cheap radio scanner that has the air band

and pick up yul on a freq of 133.700 mhz am mode.

[xed]

Was looking for a way to programmically fetch some of the data from Wunderground, I gave up since they don't seem to offer any decent XML feeds. However, while Googling about I came across an XML data feed (http://dd.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/EC_sites/xml/QC/s0000635_e.xml) from Environment Canada for Montreal (Dorval airport).

So, one vbAdvanced module later, we now have the ability to display custom weather information appearing directly on the website (homepage), which includes the wind speed, something that was never displayed with the Javascript from The Weather Network icon.

Only issue is that we lost the nice current weather icons for now. This could be added later by parsing the text from Environment Canada (http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/canada_e.html).

[Andrew Fernie]

Thanks Greg. I like the new format - I can get the information I want without having to click through.

Andrew

[Burning Head]

Ya thanks Xed,the wind speed was the nigthmare of any smal craft,:cool:

[beto9]

Great! Then we may need to contact Dorval Tower for take-offs and landings...

How often does it updates?

[xed]

Well it you look at the The Weather Network report for Pierrefonds (http://www.theweathernetwork.com/index.php?product=weather&placecode=CAQC0410&wbRef=www.wimac.ca&link=cityPage&switchto=c&ref=wxbtn150x90_text_city) that their data tag is "Updated:Friday Oct 17 2008,13:00 EDT- P.E.Trudeau Airport", which is the same data available from Environment Canada's website/XML feed so it looks like its one in the same. They appear to update their reports once per hour, shortly after the hour...

I finally came across the XML data for Weather Underground website, which is available for many areas in and around Montreal except Pierrefonds. We could of course buy $1400.00 worth of equipment, install the collection equipment at the school and wirelessly transmit the data to a club member's home computer (Peter Lane) and then feed the website that way... But I'm not sure the cost is worth the result... About the only thing it would give us is better wind reporting.

The next closest (to our field) weather station available on Weather Underground's WunderMap (http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=45.43000031&lon=-73.93000031&zoom=10&pin=STE.-Anne-De-Bellevue%2c%20Quebec) actually appears to be Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue (http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=45.43000031,-73.93000031), which is SW of our field on the other side of Chemin de Anse A'Lorme.

[beto9]

They really blew the forecast today.... winds expected!

Many times is blowing here downtown and a breeze in Pierrefonds.... or viceversa...

A fast browsing of some stations seem to be in the price range 700-1200.
We could use the school WiFi and sell it to them as a science project for their students....

I also think that what carries most weight is not the current conditions but the forecast: why would I go if it is going to blow 90 degrees runway?

All said... thanks Greg!

[PaulG-rc]

I use this site and find that is very much accurate.
I selected Lake of two mountain and it gives even the time for the wind,temp, wind gust , direction and cloud cover.

http://www.windguru.cz/int/index.php?sc=145

Use the bottom graph Nam12
If you look today is very much what is happening here now.