Cloud and Sun, meet Moon

Norway's main broadcasting company (wholly government operated) and Norway's meteorological institute have joined forces and produced a new website, with animated maps and stuff. It's still in beta, but I'm finding it a rather fascinating alternative to the institute's own pages.

I can search for my own little neck of the woods, Fyllingsdalen. I am informed that there is no other place on the planet called Fyllingsdalen, and we are part of a city. Going to Fyllingsdalen's own weather page, I learn that the weather station is 3.2 km (2 miles) away (and so likely not even in Fyllingsdalen), and that I am located at 60°21′42″N 05°17′45″E. I also learn that today, which is Midsummer's Eve or St. John's Eve, I can safely leave my umbrella at home if I intend to see the bonfire in my local neighborhood.

The meteogram delivered by the institute is a simple graph, with green bars showing precipitation and a red line showing temperature, moving in a straight line between data points, and the symbols for weather at the top and time and wind at the bottom. I have found it quite accurate, and it tells me when the weather will happen, not just what weather. It applies to all of Bergen.

The new site delivers a meteogram for my neighborhood only. While I love the colors and icon, I have to admit that seeing clouds and suns bouncing up and down along a squiggly temperature line is a tad - distracting. It doesn't look like weather any more, but rather like something I'd see in children's programming. "Cloud and Sun Go for a Walk in the Red Hills and Meet Moon". This may take some getting used to.

Comments

SolSionnach said…
Awwww - I think it's rather cute! (but why is the moon shown? will there be not sun those three days, or is that when the moon is going to be full?
SolSionnach said…
Interesting - I do a search for Fyllingsdalen, and the page that comes up is in *English*. I notice that the first page (where I searched from) was only in a language i don't read (I assume it's Norwegian... ;))
I guess they are sampling where my computer is linking to them from, and automatically putting up an English page. Amazing, huh?
Keera Ann Fox said…
The moon is shown for nighttime. I really think it should also be shown in its proper phase. I thought it was a bald sun at first ("hazy sunshine" or something).

I was rather surprised that the result page was in English, but as I poke around more on the site, links to help in Norwegian pop up. Maybe they're trying to reach an international audience. They offer weather forecasts for 7 million places world-wide.
SolSionnach said…
I figured out the moon thing, once I looked at the chart full size. I think the phase would be cuter, fwiw. It also indicates that you'll be able to *see* the moon - I looked up the weather in Lillehammer, and they won't see the moon tonight.

So you see the result page in English, too. I liked the "advanced Map" tab - you can go out and basically see the whole world, with data for the northern hemisphere. Sort of. Not the US or Japan, but an interesting shape. Whoopsie - that's when you click on "temp" for Europe. if you click on it for world, you'll get the whole globe.

I've bookmarked the Fyllingsdalen page - I think the whole website is pretty remarkable. Bravo!
Keera Ann Fox said…
Not sure what you mean by "Not the US or Japan" because those are definitely available. You can search for any of the 7 million places in the search bar at the top of the page. Click "Værsøk" ("weather search") to start the search.
Keera Ann Fox said…
Ooh, speaking of what you'll see, look up some place like Hammerfest come winter to see the sun shown under the horizon, i.e. clear weather but no actual sun.
SolSionnach said…
as far as US or Japan not being available, I was referring to under the "advanced map" tab - and I had clicked "temp" under *europe*. do that, and you'll see what I mean. Then I said "whoopsie" because I saw what I'd done.

Geez it's getting late. I have fun out with friends tonight. :)
Keera Ann Fox said…
"Temp." gets me the temperature map. Those buttons are options for type of map within the region you're already in.

It looks like to move from Europe to say "Rest of World", all options under Europe have to be removed (mine shows "Precip. 1h" chosen as a default). And yes, when I do that, uh, I still get my original map.

Well, it is still in beta. :-) And something to report to the folks in charge. Well done, Sravana!
SolSionnach said…
Well, it's been fun.
I LOVE maps, always have. This morning (and last night) I've been having fun with Google Maps, planning my driving trip to see my folks in South Fork, CO.

Unfortunately, Google maps doesn't give you the skinny on exactly how many miles in total - so I went to Mapquest for that - they say 888 miles, estimating 15 hours on the road. It's definitely a 2-day trip, and my folks are trying to get me to drive all the way to Dalhart (500 miles) the first day - so the second day is shorter. Yikes. I get tired on the 90 miles to San Antonio! I did the division (thank ghod for calculators) and it's 6 times that far to Dalhart.

Oops. This is turning into a blog post, so I'd better stop, and do *that* (at rhythmicinterchange)
Anonymous said…
Interesting - nice to see MET well recognized. I've been using it since we've lived on Stord to watch for rain / snow / storm bands.
Keera Ann Fox said…
Sravana, that's how some of my blogposts happen: I realize I'm going on and on in a comment. :-)

Tim, I've always preferred met.no to Storm Weather. The latter never just told me the weather.
SolSionnach said…
Yeah, Keera - that happens, doesn't it?
And now I'm on a roll of posting to both my blogs several times a week. Here's hoping I can keep it up for a bit.

BTW - who is this Mark guy? He even sent me an email referring to my comment re: editing comments on one's blog!
Keera Ann Fox said…
I've found more to blog about! Yay! I haven't been daily in quite a while.

Re Mark, see e-mail.
SolSionnach said…
So, where's the new blogpost? I've already posted once today.. ::nyah, nyah:::

Sravana, who will be busy tonight.

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaning out my surf-box

Brave enough, after all