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<p>People might remember that I posted a somewhat whimsical note on
Nov. 29 about my experiences searching the Weather Underground web
site for weather data for a remote ski area in the Andes, with the
conclusion that I could kludge together a working weather file by
taking the temperature and humidity data from a PWS (Personal
Weather Station) at the ski area, the wind data from another
nearby PWS, and the cloud data from the nearest official weather
station on the outskirts of Santiago (search the archives if you
want to read the details and see the colorful maps).</p>
<p>After hearing no response for more than a month, I received an
e-mail two days ago affirming the client needed this weather file.
After refreshing my memory by reading the old e-mails, I got to
work and discovered yet more surprises. (1) The client told me
that the actual building site is not at this ski area, but another
mountainous location on the border with Argentina several hundred
kilometers further south! They mentioned Farellones just because
of the higher probability of a weather station at the ski area
(and they were right). (2) When I searched the Weather
Underground web site, many of the PWS, including Farellones, had
disappeared! Luckily, I had the station name from before and found
that I could still retrieve the data using that station name. <br>
</p>
<p>The end result was that after spending 1-2 hours, I was able to
construct the weather as I had described on Nov. 29. In fact, when
I plotted the data, as I always do before sending them out, they
had a real look of veirisimilitude :-) See below:</p>
<p><img src="cid:part1.21E37DD7.1628E159@whiteboxtechnologies.com"
alt=""><img
src="cid:part2.A8803C28.AE080D5D@whiteboxtechnologies.com"
alt=""></p>
<p>My main takeaways from this experience are (1) if you find
useful data from Weather Underground, download it promptly because
it might go away at any time, but (2) if a station disappears from
the Wundermap the data might still be on the Web and retrievable.<br>
</p>
<p>Joe<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="90">--
Joe Huang
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 205A
Moraga CA 94556
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:yjhuang@whiteboxtechnologies.com">yjhuang@whiteboxtechnologies.com</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com">http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com</a> for simulation-ready weather data
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"
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