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Spark-le On, Weather Geeks! New Map, Graph & Data Mashup Lets You Navigate Weather History
Combining current and past local weather data, WeatherSpark is an interactive platform for navigating the storms, sunny days, and windy skies of days gone by and right this minute. Using their map toggled with weather stations in hundreds of global locations, you can tap into today's forecast or the weather of yesteryear, and "pan and zoom through the entire history of any weather station on earth."
We played around with the Los Angeles weather station's data a bit, and learned that on this day in 1954 it was 59 degrees and sunny (with some light rain) in L.A.--which is pretty on par with our current 58 degrees and chance of rain today. It also rained a lot more here in 1978. You can toggle around different options for maps, graphs, reports, and which data is fed into the display (wind or rain, which will it be?). Glance at the data sorted by day, week, month, or year, and use the slide at the bottom to move through.
If you want to broaden your weather horizons, WeatherSpark has a list of 5 things you could do:
1. Get three local forecasts presented in graphs. Two when outside of the US. 2. Compare the weather in San Francisco vs New York. 3. Check out the monsoon in Mumbai, India. The rain is so dominant that it cools down the air for three months, creating a yearly temperature curve that actually dips in the summer. 4. See that cold snap in Dallas around the Super Bowl this year that was all over the news. Turn on the wind speed and direction graphs and you'll see the wind change from a weak southerly to a strong northerly just as the cold snap starts. 5. See an average late July in Houston. The thunderstorms typically roll in around 4pm.
Sure, sure. But wouldn't you rather just see that beautiful yellow curve of annual sunshine here in Los Angeles? We thought so.
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