Lightsoft Weather Center

Lightsoft Weather Center (LWC) is a weather graphing, monitoring and analysis application for Mac OS X. LWC is designed to work with hardware based weather stations (currently Davis Vantage range, Davis Monitor/Wizard and La Crosse WS23xx range supported) as well as using Internet based weather sources to monitor two other locations.

As data is gathered and stored in its database LWC allows you to view weather statistics such as the lowest temperature, or the highest wind speed over any time period stored in the database. In addition LWC contains a journal for weather notes and can generate web pages containing current conditions, graphs, statistics and a web-cam image. LWC can upload these web pages to your server for display via a web browser anywhere in the world. LWC also supports uploading to Wunderground Personal Weather Station pages, CWOP, custom web page processing for more complex web pages and close to real time custom CGI upload.

LWC also monitors the weather and can run a set of pre-defined and user programmed alerts that can trigger emails, send SMS messages to your mobile phone and/or run scripts should an alert trigger.

Features

Lightsoft Weather Center offers the following features:

Integration with Davis Vantage, Monitor and Wizard range of weather stations.
Integration with the La Crosse WS 23xx range of weather stations.
Wunderground Personal Weather Stations upload including RapidFire mode.
Citizen Weather Observer Program upload - user programmable server list, ports and upload time (with random variation).
Simple web page generation and upload to web server of current conditions, graphs, web cam image, statistics and journal - just fill in a few details and have web pages on-line in minutes.
Custom web page processing - takes your web pages, replaces weather tags with current data, graphs, dials, web-cam imagery and FTP's to your web server with up to 3 upload streams simultaneously. This page demonstrates the tags currently available: http://www.lightsoft.co.uk/LWC/LWC_custom_web
Custom CGI driver - can drive a CGI on your web server with current weather data in close to real time. Simple example php scripts included.
A local network client can display weather station gauges on any machine on your local network.
Continuous and unlimited recording, monitoring and analysis of weather data for up to three locations.
Provides graphs of temperature, humidity, dew point, wind chill, heat index, wind speed, wind direction, cloud base, precipitation, internal temperature, internal humidity and barometric pressure.
Can graph and display conditions for any date in the database. Graph scales range from 1 to 56 days.
Continuous statistics calculation and display.
Continuous database timeline maintenance; if LWC misses samples, data is downloaded from the station's data-logger.
Database query facility; for example querying the total rainfaill over a given date range.
A journal, linked to the database for recording your own weather notes.
Export of data from any date range within the database.
Additional sources of weather data for comparison purposes or keeping an eye on other locations include weather.com, The Weather Underground, The Weather Underground Personal Weather Pages, METAR and NOAA. Backup sources can be specified.
Three pre-programmed alerts; ice, rain and clear sky.
Unlimited user programmed alerts which can be used to send emails, SMS messages or run AppleScripts for integration with other systems.
In-built test system for custom alerts.
Independent units for each of the six main data types.
The weather can be spoken as the data changes.
Daily data email; sends tab-delimited data email for any or all locations.
LWC can collect, display and animate satellite imagery.
Weather records can be notified via email.
Time-lapse movie creation and upload (requires QuickTime compatible camera). Weather data overlay can be applied to the movie.

Features And Configuration

Real Time Display (Tools->Weather Stations Gauges)

LWC provides a real time display of the current weather from your weather station via these gauges.

The wind direction gauge shows the current wind direction with its larger pointer. The smaller pointer displays the average wind direction - this will be gray until valid, it then becomes red.

The Wind Speed gauge shows the current speed with the larger pointer whilst the smaller pointer shows the average wind speed (which turns red when valid). The bottom figure in the dial shows the 10 minute gust (1 MPH in this picture).

The Barometer shows the current relative pressure plus the high and low readings since the reset button was last pressed.

All thermometer type gauges show the current value plus daily high (red line) and low (blue line).

Graphs (Tools->Graphs)

LWC graphs important weather variables. Forward and back buttons allow you to scroll through the data in a continuous fashion; if the imagery window is open (see below) and has been recording imagery, then this will also update as you scroll through time. The scale of the graphs can be set between 1 and 56 days and selected graphs can be printed from the Print menu.

LWC also can download weather from the internet for two other locations using NOAA, METAR, Wunderground or weather.com - in the above picture we are also monitoring/recording Glasgow Airport and Cupertino.

Log (Tools->Log)

LWC logs pretty much everything that happens, from uploading your web pages to dealing with comms problems.

Statistics (Tools->Statistics)

LWC maintains a continuous database of your weather data - this allows it to calculate and display various statistics which are updated in real time as the data comes in from your weather station. The real value of this becomes obvious as you collect more data - for example 'Is this January colder than last January?'
Data is all important to LWC. Weather data is stored as text based XML (you can find the data in your home directory in Library/LWCData); you can read it in any text editor. Data is never overwritten, we save first, then rename the file. This ensures data is never lost in the event of a power outage.

Questions?

The Stats window allows you to query the database to answer questions you may have. In this example we wanted to find out how much rain has fallen in the last month.

Data Export (Tools->Data Export...)

Off course you may want to export your data to a spreadsheet to perform more complex calculations or graphing - data export is available from the 'Tools'Menu.

Export Preview

We also provide a preview so you can check the data before export.

Journal (Tools->Journal)

LWC allows you to easily create and upload weather pages to a web server. Part of those pages can be your weather journal (as well as the current weather conditions, graphs and statistics.) The Journal can be accessed from the 'Tools' menu and allows retrospective entries.

Imagery (Tools->Imagery)

LWC can also download, animate and create your desktop picture from satellite imagery. If the imagery window is open when scrolling through the data as described in the graphs above, then the imagery follows the time-line.

Current Conditions

LWC allows you to display the current weather both in a floating graphic for your desktop and also via its Dock icon.

Preferences

LWC is setup from its Preferences (Lightsoft Weather Center->Preferences)

Locations

This is where you enter the name of your weather station, the latitude and longitude along with the elevation. Enter these details and then press 'Set Details'. To set up Internet data sources enter the name of your town or city and then press the 'Lookup' button. LWC will search all its data sources and return a list of likely hits. Note that the lookup can take quite some time - in the order of minutes,

You can set the primary, a backup and a second backup source. LWC fetches the weather data from the internet source every 15 minutes and stores it in your database. If a source fails it will automatically switch to the backup, if that fails then it will switch to the second backup.

Email/SMS

LWC can email you when weather alerts are triggered (see below). You set up the email addresses here. Email address 1 not only has the alerts emailed to it but also any administrative messages LWC wants to send. Administrative messages are sent when something goes wrong - for example LWC couldn't upload your web pages.

LWC can also send a Daily Data email which contains all the weather data for the previous day for any of the locations. In addition a daily test email can be sent (so you know LWC is running) and 'record emails' - these are sent when a weather record is broken - for example a new all-time high temperature.

SMS is also set up here. You need to know your 'phone providers' SMS message center number; enter it here along with your mobile phone number. If your Mac's modem is plugged into the telephone socket then you have the option of having weather alerts sent as SMS message to your mobile phone.

Online

This is where all of LWC's on-line facilities are set up.

On-line - Simple Web - Setup

This pane in conjunction with the 'Texts' pane of the Simple Web preferences is where you configure the creation and upload of your weather pages to your web server (it can be your local machine).

We hope it is reasonably self explanatory - the only data you need to enter is your ftp user name, password and path on the server to save the web pages. Do this via the 'Edit FTP Account' button. The following sheet is displayed:

Enter your details and then test the connection. If all went well the results should look as per the above.

On-line - SimpleWeb - Texts

This pane is where you enter the text for your web pages - items such as your station location, altitude, and if using a web-cam, which direction it is facing are good thing to put here. You can use HTML tags in this text.

On-line - Custom Web

LWC can take your web pages, replace tags in them with weather data, save the new pages to disk and then FTP them to your web server. Full details are included in the distribution and help files are available from the 'Show Help' button. The FTP settings here are independent of the Simple Web FTP settings.

On-line - Custom CGI

LWC can upload weather data to a script or CGI running on your web server in close to real time; this allows very rapid updating of weather data on your web pages or driving flash animations/guages etc. Simple instructions and an example server files written in PHP are included in the distribution.

On-line - Wunderground

This pane configures LWC for Wunderground's Personal Weather Stations upload service. You can create a new Weather Underground account (if you don't have one already), set up the details and enable and disable Wunderground upload. 'RapidFire' mode is also enabled here. LWC allows you to set the update rate to as little as 0.1 second. The pane also displays some statistics and allows you to go directly to your Wunderground Personal Weather Stations page.

On-line - CWOP

This pane configures LWC for the Citizen Weather Observer Program. You can create a new CWOP account (if you don't have one already), set up the details and enable and disable CWOP upload. You can also set some advanced settings here such as which servers and ports to connect to as well as the update rate and which data to send. The pane also displays some statistics and allows you to go directly to your CWOP page.

Alerts

There are three pre-programmed alerts you can enable here. The 'Ice' alert is enabled by default. This will first sent out a warning (email and/or SMS) and i the temperature continues to fall will send out an alert. The 'Rain' alert can be programmed to send an alert whenever the current conditions match the trigger condition. 'Clear Sky Alert' is useful for astronomy.

All alerts allow you to send an email, send an SMS and launch something (for example an AppleScript) on your Mac.

Custom Alerts

This is where you can program your own alerts. Clicking the 'New' button brings up the following sheet:

In this example we've double-clicked the 'Blizzard' alert. Here you can set up some conditions and some actions to perform should the alert trigger. The 'Test' button allows you to enter simulated weather conditions to see if the alert triggers as you expect.

Misc1

This is where you set up which units to use for each type of weather data, the dock icon, the floating graphic, the speech and LWC's watchdog.
Units Set the units you want for each of the data-types. LWC allows you to link the temperature and dewpoint graphs vertical scaling.

Speech LWC wouldn't be much of a Mac program if it couldn't speak! Here you can set what and when to speak.

Dock Icon Select the items you would like to appear in LWC's dock icon. Each item is shown for the time set in the 'Dock Icon Update Time' field before the next item is shown. You can also set the text color.

Floating Graphic On or off and for which location. Graphic turns blueish if the temperature is below freezing.

LWC System LWC is designed to run on a computer permanently connected to the internet 24/7. No-one can guarantee LWC won't lock up or crash, but we still need it to run 24/7 - LWC contains a number of features to ensure this. Firstly, it has an internal watchdog thread - the main thread must 'kick' this periodically; if it doesn't (because for example it has locked up) then the watchdog thread will restart LWC (but only if 'Monitor And Relaunch LWC' box is ticked). This however doesn't guard against LWC just quiting, for this problem we launch what we call the 'kicker'. This is a small Python program that periodically scans the process list looking for LWC - if it doesn't find it, it assumes it has crashed and launches it. We do not enable this by default because some people might think it's a little bit suspicious having an unknown Python program pop up in their process list.

Imagery

This is where you set up the satellite imagery for each location. We have provided a few URLs for the imagery but you can also enter your own URL to a picture to download from the internet. The period of the download can be set from 15 minutes to 24 hours. The more often you download the imagery the more space on disk your database requires.

The preview button allows you to see if the source is working and the 'Use As Desktop Picture' pop-up allows you to set which of the locations to use as your desktop picture.

Requirements

Lightsoft Weather Center runs on Mac OS X 10.4 and later (G3, G4, G5, Intel).

Support

We have a created a support forum for LWC discussion - this is a great source of information regarding LWC. Please post any feedback and questions you may have.

Latest Version And Download

The latest version of LWC (1.0.0) can be downloaded here.

Purchasing LWC

You can purchase LWC from the link on the left, or by clicking here.