GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE WEATHER UTILITY

Copyright (c) 2006-2008 Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org>.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software is
granted under terms provided in the LICENSE file distributed with
this software.


WHAT?

This command-line utility is intended to provide quick access to
current weather conditions and forecasts. Presently, it is
capable of returning data for localities throughout the USA by
retrieving and formatting decoded METARs (Meteorological
Aerodrome Reports) from NOAA (the USA National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration) and forecasts from NWS (the USA
National Weather Service). The tool is written to function in the
same spirit as other command-line informational utilities like
cal(1), calendar(1) and dict(1). It can retrieve arbitrary weather
data via specific command-line switches (station ID, city, state),
or aliases can be configured system wide and on a per-user basis.
It can be freely used and redistributed under the terms of a
BSD-like License.


WHY?

My girlfriend had a long commute to/from work and school, and
often wanted to check the weather both for home and her office.
Unfortunately, starting a Web browser, pulling up a weather site,
entering multiple ZIP codes and waiting for them to load is
time-consuming for the marginally-impatient. Since she tended to
stay logged into a shell server most of the time, I figured I'd
install a quick command-line tool to retrieve weather info for
her commute, but to my surprise, a quick search turned up little
that met my basic requirements:

  * retrieve current data on-demand
  * provide both current conditions and short-term forecasts
  * simple, human-readable output
  * easy to configure and use
  * flexible command-line switches and options


WHERE?

A tarball for the most recent version of the weather utility can
be had here:

   http://fungi.yuggoth.org/weather/src/

Alternatively, Debian users can install the weather-util package
from any mirror.
