Ph can display weather information for many locations throughout the
state and country. It also offers some special options for local weather
information. The weather information is downloaded over serial lines
from a commercial service. The raw data is fed to a CCSO computer and
is the source for several CCSO weather-related services including that
provided by ph. Ph weather information is updated in real-time as it
arrives on the data feed.
EXAMPLES:
Weather conditions for a particular location are requested with the
syntax:
where "airport_code" or "city_name" is the name of the location in which
you are interested. The airport codes and corresponding city names for
which information is available are given below:
ALN alton DSM desmoines MWA marion
ARR aurora FNT flint MVN mtvernon
BLV belleville GBG galesburg NBU glenview
BMI bloomington IND indianapolis ORD chicago ohare
BOS boston JFK newyork PIA peoria
CGX meigs LAX losangeles PDX portland
CMI champaign MDH carbondale RFD rockford
CMX houghton MDW midway SFO sanfrancisco
COU columbia MLI moline SPI springfield
CPS eaststlouis MMO marseilles STL stlouis
DEC decatur MSN madison SYR syracuse
DPA dupage MSY new orleans UIN quincy
Note that city names consisting of more than one word are sometimes
written as a single entity with no spaces (e.g., sanfrancisco), and
other times are not (e.g., new orleans). Due to this inconsistency, it
may be easiest to use the three letter airport code instead. The
following example shows a request for Champaign weather conditions along
with the query results:
The first two lines of the "text" field in the example above consist of
the raw weather data. In the remaining lines, the raw data has been
parsed and given labels so that it is easier to understand.
In addition to current weather condition information, ph can also display
radar summaries, special weather announcements, and 36 hour as well as
extended forecast information. These services are largely limited to
the state of Illinois. The sample queries in the left-hand column will
yield the results listed in the right-hand column:
Query Result
----- ------
ph type=weather radar St. Louis and Marseilles
radar summaries
ph type=weather forecast 36 hour and extended
forecast for Illinois
ph type=weather special Special weather advisories
from the National Weather
Service in Springfield
and Peoria
ph type=weather illinois conditions Tabular report of
conditions throughout
the state
