More yr

Sravana and I have been having a discussion about using the new Norwegian weather website, yr.no, mentioned in my last post. She noted some oddnesses and I've noted them, too, but it is hard to tell if this is intentional or a bug. The site is still in beta.

So for those of you who don't speak Norwegian, here's some navigation help, if you want to check weather anywhere:

• At the top of every page is a search field. "Værsøk" is the site's own combination of weather (vær) and search (søk). Click on that to start the search. The text under the search field is telling you to type a place name.
• Norway has its own links by region under "Varsel for Norge" (forecast for Norway) in the sidebar at left. "Varsel for utlandet" (forecast abroad) is for the rest of the world. Pretty self-explanatory even with K's where C's would be. Nord = north, Sør = South. Asia covers everything from Israel to Japan.
• Where Sravana ran into trouble was in going from my local map in the "Advanced Map" tab to a world map. Turns out that by removing choices under the region you are in (there are radio buttons to select things like temperature and precipitation), the map will update (perhaps a bit slowly) to the choices you've made in the new region. My local map goes automatically to "Europe" and "Precip 1h.". When I deselect "Precip 1h." and make a choice in, say, "Rest of World", the map updates, but will have the same geographic focus as in the previous map. But like with Google maps, you can zoom in and out and move up, down, left and right. Note: Refreshing the page just brings you back to the original map. (Not sure it that's the intention.)
• Scrolling up and down moves the zoom up and down, not the map or page (at least with my set-up: Mighty Mouse and Safari).
• To the left of the radio button choices under Europe, is something called "Tidspunkt" (time) and a date in Norwegian format below. This feature is linked to the radio button choices. I.e. choose "Precip. 1h." and the time shifts one hour ahead or back, depending on which arrow you click. "Precip 3h." makes a similar shift in 3-hour increments. I tried going ahead 24 hours but got nothing. Either no data, or no precipitation. I think this feature still has bugs.

Enough about the weather (and beta websites). On to the Norwegian lesson: Why is the site called "yr.no"? Well, "no" is Norway. "Yr" as a weather term (and noun) means drizzly or misty rain. The kind of rain that penetrates anything because the drops are so small. But "yr" has other meanings. One verb meaning is "mill around" as in the milling around of crowds of people. But "yr" as an adjective means excited, agitated or running wild, as in "yr og galen" ("wild and crazy"). "Våryr" ("spring crazy") is what a lot of animals and people get when winter finally releases its grip and the sun's heat can actually be felt. Letting the cows out of their shed for the first time in the spring usually means a bunch of jumping and dancing cows as they delight in the freedom and the fresh air. "Yr av glede" say the Norwegians, which basically means "jumping for joy". So, "yr" is a clever play on words for the new weather site, yes?