So you only need this for like 2 months. Can turn on the computer but not look at one page? Hmmm. No smart phone. Hmmm. Tablet? Leave it on and plugged in. Have only one app/function. Wait, you would have to look at it, no good either. All is lost. Just take the car. Wait, you have to unlock it, turn the ignition on, look behind you and maybe use a turn signal. Yikes. Waaaay too much going on. Patagoinia houdini wind/rain shell is like 5 oz or so, packs up small. Just carry that. So many easy options available. That require a miniscule effort. Yikes.

More like 5-6, it is not unusual to get isolated rainy days in Oct--Apr. In Jan/Feb it rains often enough it may actually be worth monitoring the weather daily.
Most of the time if I turn on the computer I get distracted by new emails and would forget to go check a weather page. But more significantly most of the time I don't turn the computer on before I ride to work, so if I remember to check the weather when I check my email, I'm already at work, so no recourse if it starts raining during the day.

Disregarding the silliness, if I drive it is not possible to forget to unlock it or turn the ignition on. If I pull the door handle and the door doesn't open, that reminds me to go get my keys.

For the same reason, I carry a tiny garage door remote on my keychain because that way it is impossible for me to forget my bike lock key (because I can't leave the house without closing the garage door which I can't do unless I have my remote which is attached to my keys -- well, I guess I could forget to close the garage door, but that particular problem is not one I have)

My ikea poncho cost less than 10 bucks, packs into itself, I don't know how that compares in size to this jacket, but it's only 8oz so it can't be that much bigger, and already it annoys me to have it in the way of my other stuff all the time, plus rain paints. Besides, I'm not going to pay $60 for a raincoat that will get only 3-4 days of use per year, I'm way too cheap for that.

Miniscule effort every day is exactly what I want to avoid, because most days, that's wasted miniscule effort. Fortunately, IFTTT is an option that is available that I have already set up for myself, so problem solved ZERO effort required going forward. Zero is better than miniscule.

I get it, and if it didn't rain here 80 days of the year I probably wouldn't check every day either.

Your message filter can forward the email to your text number btw.

Thanks but text doesn't help me because I almost never turn on my flip phone to check for texts. My voice mail says "Hello, you have NOT reached <my name>. If you leave a message, I will never hear it. Send me an email"

Good explanations, [MENTION=252435]RubeRad[/MENTION]. I thought your request was silly, but now I get it. I look forward to hearing about your results, as it could prove useful for more than weather. I use google alerts for lots of different things.

I always liked you noglider!

As an experienced google alert user, do you think it could be used for this purpose? IFTTT meets the need, but it's kind of like hiring a (free) construction crew to pound in a nail. Technically it's IFTTT providing the infrastructure for their WeatherUnderground and Gmail 'services' to interact in a recipe and send the alerts I'm interested in. Signing up for this, I had to agree to let this system have access to my email in a very (potentially) invasive way. It would be better to have a solution that didn't need access to the inside of my email at all, but would just send me a regular email.

Perfect job for an IoT device. Check WUnderground for rain in the next 10 hours, light up a big red light by the door if true.

I barely know how to use IFFTT. I used to use procmail on a UNIX system and knew more about that. I'm not so good at the newer programming techniques. I need to learn.

My local weather forecast page is here. (I live in the 10014 zip code.) I just downloaded it using "curl" and you could use that or "wget" if you have a Mac or Linux system. I notice the page has the strings "chance of precipitation" and today, that value is 0% here. So if you can parse your local page, you can send an alert from the results.

Yes, that's an interesting possibility, although to be financially feasible it would probably have to be a fairly flexible device that's programmable for lots of similar tasks. If it's built solely for the purpose of alerting to precipitation within N hours, apparently I would be the only person in the world who would consider buying it (based on the sample of people in this thread)

That's a neat idea too, and I actually have enough perl-fu to be able to make that happen. The ***** [EDIT: not a chinese-american] in the armor there is that I don't have any kind of 24/7 server for it to run on. (The wife insists on shutting down the family computer when not in use, which is a big reason I don't turn it on first thing in the morning. It annoys me, but it's not a hill I'm willing to die on)

I could probably get it going as a cron job that would automatically run in the background whenever the computer is on, which would be daily. And if it kept a log of when it sent alerts, it could avoid sending more than once per day/rain-event.

I have plenty of 24-hour servers and could run this for you.

Wow, that's cool. I'll email you to take this part of the discussion offline...

Speaking of Siri speaking, I just remembered that Amazon finally added their version -- Alexa -- to many Kindle Fire tablets. Works great for quick stuff like "How's the weather today/this weekend?"

I recently bought a larger upgraded Fire HD 8" for my mom when the price dropped, in part for the Alexa voice control. She has tremors and occasionally struggles with touch sensitive tablets, but could manage the simpler voice command interface. At the time Amazon said Alexa would not be available for her older 2014 Fire HD. But within a week they'd upgraded the OS and added Alexa to the 2014 (but not 2012) Fire tablet. It's pretty handy for her.

More than a year ago, I began writing a JavaScript app that would give me all of the pertinent weather information that I care about for cycling, on a single screen, on my phone. Sadly, I just tried it out, and it no longer works, meaning that it was probably using some weather data service that no longer exists. But this shouldn't be hard for someone to do, and can run directly on the phone without having to create a server.

Cool. Writing a whole app is not in my wheelhouse, I only know a smattering of JavaScript. But that could be a good learning exercise.

Admittedly my "app" is 76 lines of JavaScript and HTML. It's only the second JavaScript program that I've ever written, and was a learning exercise for me.

$100 to only be soaked from the waist down. What a deal.

Not everybody commutes to satisfy their exhibitionism fetish. My wicking shirt will dry a lot faster than my mountain shorts. Unfortunately, the tards over at Frogg Toggs can't figure out how to gusset rain pants so they won't rip out at the crotch if one dares to raise a foot high enough to clear a normal frame, and every rain cape under $200 appears to be either just a regular poncho not designed for riding or made of the Dollar Tree poncho cellophane that only survives if you put it on very carefully and then sit absolutely still.

I'd suggest hiring a personal assistant to check the weather for you. Or get a damn smartphone like everyone else.

Having a modern convenience to utilize a modern convenience.......


Nope, too radical. ;)

I tried a poncho once. It nearly killed me. Turns out ponchos make fantastic sails to catch crosswinds and throw you in front of traffic.

Why would you suggest that I do that, instead of using IFTTT to do exactly what I was looking for and no more?

LOL, the 'problem', niche and minor as it was, has been SOLVED since comment #6! And still everybody seems so angry, and think I'm stupid for not wanting to do the same thing they do!

I'm pretty impressed with the quality of my Ikea rain cape. It was I think $6.99 or so, and it doesn't suck. If it had thumb loops, I'd actually call it "good". Gotta figure out a good way to DIY some.

After 4 pages and several days worth of replies I'm surprised no one has suggested a 1970's level answer, a weather radio. My alarm clock has the weather bands and can use one of them as the alarm. Easy peasy and no computerized stuff at all. Or you could look for a cat like my Mom's cat - she hides downstairs when it's going to rain.

Interesting idea; but I'm not looking for an every-day solution, I'm particularly looking for an automated only-when-necessary solution (and that solution has been found: IFTTT)

Currently my radio alarm clock is carefully set to between-stations, so when it goes off it's white noise, not crappy music.

I can imagine life without a smartphone (at least for a while), but can't imagine not checking the weather. I've probably checked the weather a half dozen times already, as well as walked outside to see how it feels.

I'm sure if I lived in a place that had weather, I'd feel the same.

LOL! I know, right?

A few years ago my mom was considering one of those emergency services that basically involves installing a microphone so the emergency response monitors can listen to you 24/7 in case you fall. She didn't like the idea of being spied on. Like she's giving away state secrets playing Mahjong all day and watching TMZ and ET at night.

Supposedly the version of Alexa in the Fire tablets is activated only when called on like, Siri. But who knows for sure.

I've resigned myself to the fact that all of my computers and devices are basically government spy tools that they'll let me operate for my own amusement, pretending to solve all the world's problems by posting memes on Facebook and whining about the government. :rolleyes:

After I'd been commuting for a while I realized that during the spring and fall when the weather could change drastically and quickly it was better to be ready for just about anything. It got to be a lot more comfortable too knowing I could adapt to the changing conditions with clothes I had with me too and got to be one less thing to worry about.