More weather by SMS

Despite writing software for my own SMS weather service covering the East Atlantic, I still found myself checking sites such as windfinder and windguru whenever I was in port.

This was because I was sailing along the coast and the GRIB data used for my system produces data points for the high seas. Along the coast of Portugal and the Rias of Spain the data started at about 10 degrees longitude west. Good enough, but not perfect.

My solution was to make windguru coastal data available via sms.

Here is how to obtain it. Send a text message in the format:

wg:coruna

to the usual Belgian number +32498327494

This will return approximately two days worth of wind and wave data as two separate text messages for the city of La Coruna. Due to the limits of text messaging, precipitation and cloud cover are not included.

The list of data points that can be used is currently as follows (I’ll add more soon):

  • gibraltar
  • tarifa
  • meca
  • rota
  • mazagon
  • canela
  • faro
  • vilamoura
  • praia
  • sagres
  • sines
  • cascais
  • peniche
  • nazare
  • figueira
  • aveiro
  • espinho
  • viana
  • patos
  • rostro
  • laxe
  • coruna
  • cedeira
  • navia
  • salinas
  • gijon
  • moris
  • vicente
  • santander
  • orinon
  • laida
  • sebastian
  • hondarribia
  • mimizan
  • soulac
  • diamond
  • houat
  • glenan
  • trepasses
  • brittany
  • sablons
  • vierge
  • dossen
  • rose
  • malo
  • jersey
  • guernsey
  • becquet
  • salcombe
  • exmouth
  • lyme
  • weymouth
  • swanage
  • compton

Obviously you replace coruna (in the example given above) with the data point from this list that interests you. Note that only lower case letters are used.

The data returned looks like this (but with many lines):

Su20 11.6 15 2.3 13

  • The first two letters are the day of the week
  • The next two digits are the time for the forecast (in 24hr format)
  • Wind speed in knots to 1 decimal point
  • Wind direction compass rose. 0 is north 4 is East 8 is South and 12 West
  • Wave height in meters to 1 decimal point
  • Wave direction compass rose

So for Sunday at 20:00 hours the wind will be 11.6kts from the NNW. Wave height will be 2.3m and the swell will be from the WNW.

Hope it helps!

If it does and you care to help me pay for the SMS bills, be sure to press the donate button on my homepage at www.ifno.info