Road Cycling - Best Thing EVER For Cyclists

Check this out. In Australia we have access to radar images provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. We now know pretty much exactly when it's gunna rain! AWESOME!! I'm sure you have this in the U.S.

http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR022.loop.shtml

In the US, we have www.weather.com and www.accuweather.com along with a host of others. Though they're not that accurate out to about 1-2 days. I'll usually rely on their canned forecasts for the next 12 hours at best. If a storm's coming, I look at the radar images, guess the speed of the storm, and make a judgement on going out or not.

That's useful in Melbourne where there is at least a vague semblence of 'winter'. :)

Some of us who are also pilots have access to DUAT which we can use to access the METARs directly too. Then again, there are other ways to get at METARs as well. The trick then becomes one of interpretting and making the proper meteorological analysis and predictions. Another good source for weather data IMHO is one of the original Internet's weather information source... Wunderground (http://www.wunderground.com/) which started out at UMich. I also remember some of the other earlier weather servers like the one at vmd.cco.uiuc.edu.

The official site for weather is: http://www.noaa.gov from here you can enter your local ZIP code and get your area's latest weather products from the National Weather Service.

Weathertap has the best radar and satellite photos on the net. Just about real time. However it is a pay site.

http://www.weathertap.com/

The official site for weather is: http://www.noaa.gov from here you can enter your local ZIP code and get your area's latest weather products from the National Weather Service.


I have a little Windowmaker applet called wmweather+ (http://www.dockapps.org/file.php/id/112) that hits that site for data. I do have wmweather+ configured to grab radar data off image.weather.com though because the map looks prettier.

http://www.dockapps.org/files/112/144/wmweather+.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/147/wmweather+2.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/152/wmweather+3.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/155/wmweather+4.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/160/wmweather+5.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/168/wmweather+6.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/233/wmweather+7.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/390/wmweather+8.png

I like noaa.gov or weather.gov (not .com!) because you get good weather reports with no ads.

I have a little Windowmaker applet called wmweather+ (http://www.dockapps.org/file.php/id/112) that hits that site for data. I do have wmweather+ configured to grab radar data off image.weather.com though because the map looks prettier.

http://www.dockapps.org/files/112/144/wmweather+.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/147/wmweather+2.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/152/wmweather+3.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/155/wmweather+4.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/160/wmweather+5.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/168/wmweather+6.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/233/wmweather+7.pnghttp://www.dockapps.org/files/112/390/wmweather+8.png

I take it that you are using Linux on your desktop? Pretty cool looking app.

I use the NOAA site all the time. No ads and its the same data that the weatherdude on your local station uses.

www.weather.gov is another great site for teh states.

I take it that you are using Linux on your desktop? Pretty cool looking app.

Actually I'm using FreeBSD on my x86 machines and either Solaris or NetBSD on my SPARCs (desktop is an Ultra2 running Solaris) although my laptop is set up to triple-boot FreeBSD-CURRENT, RedHat Linux 9 and WindowsXP. I did have to hack the applet's code a little to get it to work and compile right under FreeBSD but's it's a great little applet so I didn't mind. If I'm sitting at my desk and I want to know if the weather will hold should I pop out for a ride, there's no need to point my web browser to a weather page. I can just look over to the corner and even pull up all the forecasts by clicking on a single button. You can see how the applet is situated on my laptop's environment in this screenshot (http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/gallery/screenshots/2004_01_14_205930_shot).

Check this out. In Australia we have access to radar images provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. We now know pretty much exactly when it's gunna rain! AWESOME!! I'm sure you have this in the U.S.

http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR022.loop.shtml

They've been around for a few years. During the drought I used to spend hours staring at it, hoping to God I'd see some activity.

I like Intellicast.com (http://www.intellicast.com). I've been using it for several years now. It "predicts" the weather patterns roughly seven hours in advance and is pretty dang accurate most of the time.

For a quick look at cycling conditions in the next two days or so, I love the Weather Underground Graphic Forecast (http://www.wunderground.com/MOS/DisplayMOS.asp?AirportCode=KCMI&SafeCityName=Champaign&StateCode=IL). On the main page, it's called the "AVN MOS Weather Graph forecast."

Of course the link above is set up for my hometown, but you can get the data for where you live in a jiffy. It shows graphically the forecast temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind speed and wind direction for ride planning.

I also use the My-Cast nine-hour forecast for a second opinion and for severe weather monitoring.