pricklycommute

Hey guys.

I am looking for a free desktop weather program that shows current temperature, wind direction, and speed. The only ones I have found just show temperatures on your taskbar, unless you open them each time. Even then, the one I installed this morning (weatherbug) only updated once an hour. That's pretty worthless.

Anything else out there?

threephi

Not sure how often it updates, but you could try google desktop and install the weather plugin.

banerjek

You have a number of options. If you have programming skills, you can get the weather data directly from weather stations.

Be aware that even official weather stations often post data once per hour. One thing you might consider is getting your own weather station. It's quite a bit of fun, and you have a lot of control over the display. I like mine https://weather.alptown.com/ but since I have dialup, it only updates when I'm at work to avoid tying up my phone line.

Later this year, I'm taking the broadband plunge so it can update in real time.

p.s. warning: many free weather utilities (I think weatherbug is one of them) installs adware that can slow your computer down quite a bit. Be sure to read the licensing agreements.

Portis

Yeah but all of the spyware is priceless. .

2wheeledsoul

If you use the Firefox browser, look for an extension called 1-click Weather. It pulls weather forcasts from the Weather Channel website, customized for your location. 100% spyware free, too, plus free as a bird.
IMHO, it smacks Weatherbug around mercilessly.

Portis

I think the National Weather Service is much more reliable.

This is a great tool for cycling. It predicts wind, temp, windchill etc. by the hour. (click on hourly weather graph from first link)

GTcommuter

I like Weather Pulse. Puts a small window in one corner of the screen displaying a graphic of the current weather, current temp, and a text description of the current weather (cloudy, sunny, windy, etc). Not a ton of info, but easy, quick, and seems to be adware free.

marqueemoon

I prefer a little surprise in my life.

Turbonium

gnome has a cool applet that sits on a panel, it even has a radar map if you set it up.


ohh yeah winblows.... sorry.

oboeguy

The current release is a buggy POS. Forecastfox is excellent, using the AccuWeather assuming that AccuWeather is accurate in your area it seems (it used to use the Weather Channel, but no more for whatever reason).

TheDL

I use the Firefox 1-Click and also check the National Weather Service www.noaa.gov

2wheeledsoul

The only issue I've ever encountered with it was the in-your-faceness of the severe weather alert the one guy was complaining about. I havn't seen any other issues; must be the mimimalist options I used to set it up.
I've never been able to get forcastfox to work corectly. It would sometimes crash the browser when trying to call up a forecast.

MicheleC

If you go to weather.com, they have an online store. That's where I bought my weather station. Just a little one that tells me the temperature inside and outside. Here right now, it says it is 63 degrees inside and 43 degrees outside. I find when I check weather.com or the Weather Channel that the temperature there is taken only once an hour, so the outside sensor gives me a more accurate reading of what it is here at any given time.

khuon

I use a dockable applet that works with WindowMaker's Dock or fvwm's Wharf (I personally use fvwm2) called wmweather+ and although it was originally developed for linux, I ended up porting it to Solaris and FreeBSD.

TCNJCyclist

Yeah, WeatherBug is pretty bad when it comes to spyware.

I use the National Weather Service's hour-by-hour weather graph.

Tmax1

Nobody has mentioned:

https://www.weatherunderground.com

This is not standalone but informs well enough.

JG

ItsJustMe

The ForecastFox extension for Firefox. If you're not using Firefox, then you're hopeless... Oops, I mean I can't help you.

Of course, not many places HAVE data more than once per hour. If you want constant updates, check weather underground (wunderground.com) and click "personal weather stations" to see if any individuals have weather stations in your area. (https://www.wunderground.com/weathers...stStations.asp)

If not, spend $300 and put one in yourself, and register it with weather underground.

landstander

Another good choice (assuming the use of Firefox) is Forecastfox.

Bikeguy1

Weather watcher is nice and no spyware. It will show the temp on toolbar and all you have to do to see wind/feelslike temp,humidity or a bunch of other stuff is to hover your mouse over top. no need to click on it.

https://www.singerscreations.com/RSS/Posts/297.asp

geog_dash

+1

For many zip codes it includes private weather station readouts. It also has times of sunrise and sunset, which I often need for planning.

blueeyedme

That's weird - I have weatherbug and just keep it open for "live" wind conditons and temp. - includes windchill, humidity and dewpoint.

patc

In Canada The Weather Network has a free taskbar plug-in for Window, see WeatherEye.

You could also add any web page to your desktop as active content (Windows 98 and above).

Or just make the weather forcast page of your favourite weather site your browser's home page- so everytime you open your web browser, the current conditions are there.

bandregg

I know that the OP is look for software for some variant of Windows, but I thought I'd mention the wonderful Rader In Motion widget for OS X Tiger for anyone using a mac.

jnbacon

There is a weather extension for Mozilla Thunderbird as well (I think just called Weather), but it also only updates once an hour, and can only be set to NWS stations, which may not be local enough.

jagged

I wrote my own. On startup each morning, it downloads the verbose weather forecast from RSSWeather and displays it. No web browser necessary. Let me know if you'd like a copy.