Just a few changes to the NWS zone forecast site necessitated a V3.15 of the script. The Zone forecast is used as a fail-over when the point-printable forecast is unavailable. I do suggest that all users update to keep their sites running smoothly.
Standalone: Download from the Script page
Template: Download using the Update tool (use Base-USA, Plugin-*, 13-May-2015 for query)
BTW… you may have noticed that the NWS site is offering a preview of a 6-hr split Icon forecast (where needed), and I’m already mostly finished with an advforecast2.php script that handles (and creates dynamically) dual-forecast icons when they appear. Also new sets of icons (jpg 55x55 and png 86x86) will be available with the V4.00 of the advforecast2.php script. I’ve attached some sample screens to show what it looks like.
Applied the update yesterday Ken and today I have no forecast images being shown on my webpage. Strange part is the source is not showing any image being requested, just shows the directory call. Haven’t dug into it to see if I can figure out whats happening, might be I need the new icon pack…
The NWS switched off the point printable forecasts and diverted to a funny-formatted Zone forecast.
The advforecast2.php V3.16 is now available to handle it. I wish they’d stop incrementally tweaking the site. Grrrr.
No, it’s likely just a temporary situation – their internal connector from the point forecast database to the website is likely down/malfunctioning, so they’ve done a (somewhat sloppy) inclusion of a differently formatted Zone forecast where applicable. Zone forecasts are text-only, so advforecast2 parses them and attempts to extract temperatures (from ranges) and icons (based on weather/cloud description).
Instead of just doing a redirect to the Zone forecast (which the 3.15 script would have handled automatically), they chose to directly include a primitive copy of the zone forecast into the point-forecast (and point-printable forecast) page. The odd format is what threw the script from parsing it. V3.16 now handles this variant.
Hopefully, it’s ‘best use by date’ will be more than the 3 days since 3.15 was released to fix the ‘real’ zone forecast page parsing issue.
Sigh, the work of a ‘scraper’ is never really done. It’s just great that (usually) governmental websites change at glacial speed, so the interval is long and the ‘no worries’ about the code is thankfully also long.
I want to thank you very much for all the work you put into this. It is appreciated by myself and many that view my site.
Updating right now & its working great.
