Ever since 1991, current weather observations and forecasts have 
been available on the net. The University of Michigan's Weather 
Underground has been one of the Internet's early informational 
resources with broad appeal. The underground can be credited with 
providing the "hook" that got many people interested in the 
informational potential of the Internet. While relatively few people 
may be interested in Internet-accessible library catalogs or genome 
databases, everyone has an information need for a weather report at 
sometime. This ubiquitous need can be met by a variety of weather 
information sources on the net, from the venerable old Weather 
Underground family to full-color satellite images. 
     The broad range of meteorological and climatological information 
available in electronic form and net-accessible comprises a vast 
warehouse of data. Current satellite imagery alone could fill most 
people's hard drives in a few hours. Other available data include 
earthquake locations, tornado path reports, images of the latest 
eclipse, videos of famous blizzards, air pollution modeling software, 
and more. Even in the text-based sources, the Internet weather station 
can provide the usual highs and lows, average temperature, 
precipitation, sunrise/sunset, forecast, and extended forecast, as well 
as many less frequently reported measurements. 
     So where are the best of the weather-watcher tools? Can you really 
find forecasts and current weather for anywhere in the world? Are the 
net sources always current? Like so many Internet resources, the 
answers vary. The net boasts some wonderful sources of weather 
information, but it is neither comprehensive nor always current. 

THE WEATHER UNDERGROUNDS 
     The University of Michigan has made its Weather Underground 
available on the Internet since April 1991. Accessible by telnet, the 
underground is a menu-driven front end to U.S. National Weather 
Service information. It also includes Canadian forecasts, international 
weather reports, hurricane advisories, and selected ski reports. The 
project is supported by the National Science Foundation through the 
UNIDATA Project, with the data feed provided by Alden/Zephyr 
Electronics. Figure 1 gives an abbreviated view of what the menus look 
like. Figure 2 shows the beginning of one of the forecasts provided. 
     The service has been extremely popular, and the underground is now 
available at a number of other sites. The URLs for the undergrounds 
(and other resources mentioned in this column) are listed in Figure 3. 
(For those without WWW client access, use telnet directly to the given 
host at port 3000.) As additional sites began offering weather 
information, they each customized the menu, so each underground is a 
bit different. 
     The Southeast Weather Underground offers fewer menu choices than 
Michigan, but it also includes some other options, such as Wxp (an X 
interface) and an Alabama heating and cooling degree database. The 
Colorado Weather Underground is more similar to the University of 
Michigan one. But at Brockton, the underground works best with a 
gopher client. Just to confuse matters further, there are actually two 
weather undergrounds at the University of Michigan. One is at 
madlab.sprl.umich.edu, port 3000, and the other is at 
downwind.sprl.umich.edu, port 3000. 
     But at least the two University of Michigan undergrounds have the 
same data, right? Wrong. A comparison of the two University of 
Michigan undergrounds shows differences right from the first menu. 
The downwind address includes an additional menu option, a Michigan 
K-12 program. Comparing the currency of the two UM services showed 
some surprising differences as well. When everything runs smoothly, 
the current weather observations are posted within the hour, and the 
most recent forecasts are no more than 12 hours old. However, on all 
the systems, things do not always run smoothly. At one point, the 
downwind server had some eight-day-old-climatic data and seven-
day-old "current" weather, while the madlab server had 39-hours-old 
current weather, but the climatic data were current. 
     Currency problems may only affect some stations. At the same time 
that some stations were more than a week out of date, other stations 
had current information. At times over the past few years, there have 
been problems with the data for specific stations or all the data were 
dated due to problems with the data feed or translation programs. 
While the Michigan servers had old data for only a few stations, all of 
the stations at Brockton were a day behind with its forecasts. But 
there is indeed strength in numbers: while Brockton and Michigan were 
behind, the Alabama server provided current information. 
     The currency of weather forecasts is essential. Unfortunately, as 
the previous examples demonstrate, the currency of a _specific_ 
Weather Underground is not always dependable. One solution is to have 
bookmarks set to a number of the major sources for weather 
information. And always be sure to check the date of the forecast or 
observation data. 
     Another caution regarding the underground is that this is one of 
those services for "personal and educational uses." Commercial users 
are referred to the data providers for their own weather information 
feeds. But then, when you check the weather report, is it not usually 
for a personal or educational reason? 

THE WEATHER MACHINE
     As gophers increased in popularity and more people could see 
graphic images within gopher directly, current weather maps began to 
appear. They had previously been available via FTP (and many still are), 
but the ease with which gopher and Web client software display 
images has made the weather maps even more popular. With the gopher 
interface to the net gaining in popularity, a central gopher server for 
textual and graphical weather information was bound to appear. Some 
gophers set up an interface to an underground. But the best of the 
gopher weather servers, the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) 
"Weather Machine," has expanded on the underground model. 
     The weather machine provides both textual and graphic information, 
in the typical gopher menu format. For those with equipment capable of 
displaying graphics, the weather machine can provide a variety of 
single images or six-panel pictures. The six-panel surface forecast 
maps are available in six-hour intervals, from current conditions up to 
the two day forecast. They show color-coded predictions for 
temperatures, dew point, pressure, wind direction, wind speed, and 
precipitation. 
     However, even those without graphics-capable net access can see a 
picture of current weather conditions on the weather machine. Under 
the menu heading "States," followed by the heading for a specific 
state, ASCII versions of the weather maps show current temperatures, 
winds, dew point, and other measurements in a specific state or area. 
As one with no talent in ASCII artwork, I find these maps impressive 
in their ability to convey information within the constraints of the 
ASCII characters. 
     Textual forecasts and current weather observations are also 
available from the weather machine. These are not just the usual links 
to one of the undergrounds. They provide an excellent alternative 
source of forecasts. But while the information on the weather machine 
may be more current, it is more difficult to verify. It should be safe to 
assume that both the surface summaries and the ASCII maps are 
current to within the past few hours, but, unlike most weather 
information sources, neither the surface summaries nor the ASCII 
maps include any notations that designate the actual time the 
information was gathered. 

OTHER WEATHER GOPHERS
     While the weather machine is perhaps the most commonly used 
weather gopher, it crashes on occasion. For those times, or for a 
change of net scenery, try some of the other weather gophers. The 
central den of gopherspace, the University of Minnesota, includes 
weather with an interface to the University of Michigan Weather 
Underground. One advantage to this gopher version is that you can set 
up a bookmark to the local forecast for quick access. 
     The SUNY-Brockport Weather Underground mentioned earlier is also 
a gopher server. One warning with this gopher is that there are two 
approaches to the city forecasts, but only one works. Under the 
"CURRENT WEATHER/FORECASTS BY STATE" menu heading is a combined 
list of state names and three letter station abbreviations. Choosing 
the abbreviation at this point results in a blank response, but choose 
the state and then the station abbreviation, and the forecast appears. 
This problem may be fixed by the time this column is published, but it 
is a good example of the kinds of dead ends that occur in gopherspace. 
     A different gopher approach can be seen at the University of 
Wyoming. One useful feature of this gopher is the "Road Reports" menu. 
Unfortunately, only a handful of states are included for the road 
reports. However, it also includes statewide forecasts, latest hourly 
observations for each state, and a "Meteorogram" for each state in both 
PostScript and gif formats, for the more meteorologically-literate 
reader. 

WWW RESOURCES
     World-Wide Web users also have some special weather home pages. 
The University of Illinois hosts a "Weather World," which is a Web 
server based on data, primarily the still and moving images, from the 
gopher weather machine. The single shot and the six-panel images are 
available on weather world, as well as various "animations." The 
animation presents a sped-up view of past weather patterns or of 
forecasts. As with most of the weather resources, the weather world 
is still under development. There are plans to offer an even greater 
variety of resources.
     Then there is the interactive weather map at Michigan State. This 
system presents a map of the U.S. with current temperatures and other 
selected measures. Click on a map area and the nearest forecast for 
that area appears beneath the map. With X Mosaic, the specific criteria 
displayed can be chosen through the Web forms feature. 
     The best of the World-Wide Web weather resources work best with 
Mosaic or Cello or another Web client that can display the graphic or 
video (mpeg) files directly. Using a vt100 or line-mode client is more 
awkward. Services such as the interactive weather map will only work 
with appropriate clients. 

INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES 
     Extensive meteorological data are available for the United States. 
While the forecasts are only available for a handful of cities in each 
state or regional forecasts, between the current observations and the 
forecasts, a fair amount of the country is covered. Similar information 
is available from the above sources for Canadian provinces (but 
remember that the temperatures are in Celsius). On the other hand, 
international reports or forecasts are much more difficult to find. Only 
very limited reports are available for other portions of the world. 
Forecasts are rarely available, but current weather conditions in 
major cities are available. Some weather undergrounds have a heading 
for international data, which lists the current conditions at a few 
dozen cities around the globe. 
     The most comprehensive of the foreign meteorological reporting is 
in Australia. The Australian information can be reached through a 
number of options. Addresses for the Australian National University 
Bioinformatics Web server and the Bureau of Meteorology gopher 
server are listed in Figure 3, but a system similar to the underground 
can be reached by telnet to vicbeta.vic.bom.gov.au, port 55555. Both the 
gopher and Web servers offer a wide variety of weather reports and 
other data. However, for those used to the U.S. National Weather 
Service forecasts, some of the wording and measurements may seem 
unusual. 
     A few other foreign cities and countries have more limited 
meteorological data available on the net (Figure 3). The Berlin weather 
situation can be seen at the Free University of Berlin, but only in 
German. The Chile weather gopher is likewise in Spanish. In the 
Mediterranean, the current conditions in Athens (Greece, not Ohio) can 
be seen by using finger pointed at meteo@acheloos.hydro.civil.ntua.gr. 

LISTS OF WEATHER RESOURCES 
     This column has only touched the surface of the wealth of 
meteorological resources available. All sorts of satellite images and 
data archives can be found as well. The following sources point to 
other lists or specific resources. The Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology Soaring Association (MITSA) has put together an excellent 
starting page for those looking for weather on the World-Wide Web. 
The annotations on this list are especially helpful. A basic 
arrangement by access tool and geographic region can be found at the 
University of Illinois. (This is actually a mirror site of a weather page 
from the Free University of Berlin.) 
     For the true meteorology devotee, the three weather Frequently 
Asked Questions (FAQ) files are the definitive starting point. The three 
FAQs are posted regularly in news.answers and sci.geo.meteorology. 
The best one for Internet resources is known as "Part 1: Meteorological 
data available via the Internet," sometimes simply listed as "part1." 
The part 2 FAQ covers data available on tape, CD-ROM, or other media. 
The third FAQ, "Mailing Lists and Newsgroups for Meteorology," is a 
guide to Internet resources for discussion of meteorology, 
oceanography, and related disciplines. As with most FAQ files, the 
three weather FAQs can be obtained by anonymous FTP to rtfm.mit.edu. 
Look in the /pub/ usenet/news.answers/weather directory. Hypertext 
versions of the FAQs can be found at the URL listed in Figure 3. 

LIMITATIONS
     Internet meteorological resources, just like the weather itself, are 
unpredictable. As with other net resources, the Internet weather 
channels will not always be available nor provide the most current 
data. Only certain geographic regions are covered, and different 
resources are available depending on the geographic area of interest. 
On the other hand, the weather information on the net can be just as 
accurate and sometimes easier to obtain than it would be from other, 
more traditional sources. Just remember to expect weather forecasts 
to be fallible, even on the Internet. 

Communications to the author should be addressed to Greg R. Notess, 
Montana State University Libraries, Bozeman, MT 59717-0332; 
406/994-6563; greg@notess.com ; http://www.notess.com.

Copyright © 1995, Online Inc. All rights reserved.