RubeRad

I'm glad you enjoy it!

This morning, I had a typical conversation with a cow-orker:

Him: "Looks like it'll be cooler today"

Me: "Oh yeah? I never pay attention to the weather forecasts"

Him: "And hey, did you see it's going to be raining next week?"

Me: "No, that's good to know"

So rain's coming! I'll let y'all know how my IFTTT alert works.

(BTW as the conversation developed, we both agreed it's strange to get rain this late in the year)

RubeRad

It works! I got an email this morning from "me"

Subject: AM Showers Tomorrow!
Body: With a low of 53F and a high of 66F

noglider 

Please show us how you did it.

RubeRad

Click here
Click 'Turn On'
Sign up for IFTTT
Done

I didn't write my own perl script yet.

Moe Zhoost

So did you get rained on?

noglider 

Super. I turned it on for myself. Let's see how it does.

RubeRad

Barely. Had a group ride on Sat, our "Port-to-Port-to-Port-to-Port", from San Clemente to Ocean Beach, stopping at every Pizza Port for pizza and/or beer. There was one shower, but by the time we stopped and put rain gear on, it was almost over. The big problem was headwind all day long.

RubeRad

Weird thing was though, I got a rain alert on Friday, for Saturday, but I got no email on Saturday, and it was chucking it down on Sunday!

Today though, just wet streets.

RubeRad

Monday morning and Tuesday morning I opened the garage door to see wet streets, and got a couple rain drops on the way to work, but I had not gotten an email alert.

So it could be that the forecast did not say rain, so I didn't get an alert. That would be fine. I don't consider the few drops to be actual rain, and I would not want to have geared up just for that.

Or it could be that the forecast did say rain, and the alert failed.

I have no way of knowing. (Both days I forgot to check the weather forecast to see if it said 'rain' to double-check -- showing my fundamental inability to remember to check the forecast)

noglider 

BTW, since you got me interested, I asked IFTTT to warn me about rain, too. It was weird receiving an email from myself. I've gotten about three by now.

fietsbob

Stiff onshore breeze means the weather is about to change.

RubeRad

Status update, for anybody that cares (if you don't, there's an unsubscribe function up there in Thread Tools...)

Sunday afternoon, Jul 2, there was a 5-minute shower at my house. I had not gotten an email alert.

Last night (overnight Mon/Tue Jul 30/Aug 1) there was some rain, but all done by morning. I did not get an alert.

I just got an alert today though "PM Showers Tomorrow". Looking at tomorrow's forecast, I'm seeing max 5% chance of rain (and 15% right now). We'll see if there's actually any rain, I doubt it, even though it has been oddly humid lately.

Today's alert is the 2nd one I have ever gotten, the other was back on May 5.

HardyWeinberg

It's supposed to rain in September here.

noglider 

As a result of this thread, I'm getting rain alerts. It's weird when they come in, because they come from "me" in email.

noglider 

For what, like nine months?

aaronrob222

I use the Weather Underground app, which lets you enable push notifications for rain. It does a pretty good job since it's not just for the day, but for the hour! It's been nice to have on days like today where there's a 45% of rain for the day.

RubeRad

Push notifications vs pull (remembering to check) is the essence of what I want, but it has to push to email, and it can't be a smartphone app. I see WU has a Chrome browser app, it's probably the same, I might try playing around with that.

So checking the weather forecast again today, now it says 45% chance of rain from 2-5pm. I did not bring any rain gear :-(

fietsbob

Going to be a scorcher up here 100+ inland , 90, right here on the river at the coast.

noglider 

They said 40% of thunderstorms this afternoon, and I decided to risk it. Now they're saying the storms will start at 2:30, so they may be done by the time I leave, which is around 5 or 6. In fact, the weather shows the depressions as very small and not that plentiful, so I think I'll be OK. Besides, it's a warm day, so even if I get deluged, I'll be OK.

HardyWeinberg

Maybe 10

RubeRad

For those that are keeping score, I got an email on Saturday alerting me of rain forecast for Sunday.

Turned out to be only a few very light passing showers. Definitely to a level I appreciate knowing about it, but also definitely not worth gearing up for.

Anyways it was on Sunday, so not relevant for my commute. But it sure made life nicer around here by ending our heat wave.

RubeRad

Missed this first time around -- that's funny!

SylvainG

Do you have access to Doppler radar data? Here's the one I use (in Canada). It's a great aid to know if rain is coming and when to expect it.

https://weather.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html?id=XFT

If it's forecasting rain, I'll check before leaving for work and home and adjust my departure accordingly.

RubeRad

That's a 'pull' solution, it won't work for me. I'll never know if it's forecasting rain, and I'll never check before leaving for work. I need an email the day/night before (which is what IFTTT gives me)

I got 5min of fat raindrops this morning, no alert yesterday. That's OK, it was just a passing shower, small enough that it was refreshing. Glad I didn't gear up.

SylvainG

Curious why you'll never know if it's forecasting rain? Between an email push and checking the weather apps, you still have to do something to read the event. The radar map is more for 'fine tuning' where and when the rain will hit.