You can use PHP (yet another web programming language) to do this trick.
Checkout my home page at http://www.brenorbrophy.com/ to see the results. I
retrieve the METARs for some of my local airports, the airport name gets
color coded depending on the conditions (LIFR/IFR/MVFR & VFR), the time get
color'd red if its more than 1 hour old. I also get the TAF for a couple of
local airports. I use this to get a real quick over view of the local area
weather.
For the non-programmer, PHP is a scripting language that runs on a web
server. When somebody views the web-page the script is executed and it
outputs HTML code which is displayed on the web-page. Whoever is hosting
your web-page needs to allow PHP scripts to run. Now I'm not a PHP genius, I
hacked a piece of code called PHP Weather (version 2.1) which is available
at http://phpweather.sourceforge.net/.
Quick overview of what I did.
1) Downloaded and unziped PHP Weather. Put it in a directory on my web page
called weather.
2) Created a file called wx.php (my hack) and put it in same directory
3) Added an inline frame to my homepage as set wx.php as the source, the
HTML for this is:
<iframe src="weather/wx.php" name="wx bar" width="600" marginwidth="0"
height="170" marginheight="0" align="middle" scrolling="no"
frameborder="0"></iframe>
Here is wx.php file - it should be obivious how to modify it for a different
set of METARs and TAFs (Hint look at the arrays called $Airport & $tAirport)
<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body>
<table width="596" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"
bordercolor="#CCCCCC" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td width="60%" valign="top">
<?php
//error_reporting(E_ALL);
/* We need the GET variables: */
extract($HTTP_GET_VARS);
/* Load PHP Weather */
require('../weather/phpweather.php');
if (empty($language)) $language = 'en';
$weather = new phpweather();
//$weather->properties['verbosity'] = 5;
$language = 'en';
require(PHPWEATHER_BASE_DIR . "/output/pw_text_$language.php");
$type = 'pw_text_' . $language;
require(PHPWEATHER_BASE_DIR . "/output/pw_images.php");
$icons = new pw_images($weather);
/*
** Airports array holds list of airports for METAR retrival
** tAirports array holds list of airports for TAF retrival
*/
$Airport = array ("KRHV","KWVI","KMRY","KAPC","KSCK","KSAC"); // For METAR
$tAirport = array ("KSJC","KMRY"); // For TAF
echo '<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1">';
echo '<tr><td colspan="2" valign="top" bgcolor="#99CCFF"><font
face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><strong>METAR
'.gmdate("dHi\Z")."</strong></font></td></tr>\n";
foreach ($Airport as $icao) {
$weather->set_icao($icao); // Set the airport code
$metar = $weather->get_metar(); // Get the METAR report
if($metar!='') { // If I've got a valid METAR then
$parts = explode(' ', $metar); // Break into parts so we can color
various bits
$num_parts = count($parts); // Count the parts
$time = $parts[1]; // Extract the time issued part
$vis = $parts[3]; // Extract visibility
$weather->decode_metar(); // Decode it so we can check visability &
ceiling
/*
** Check for flight conditions
** LIFR (Low IFR) is vis <1SM &|| ceiling <500' - Color ICAO purple
** IFR is 1SM < vis < 3SM &|| 500' < ceiling < 1000' - Color ICAO red
** MVFR (Marginal VFR) is 3SM < vis < 5SM &|| 1000' < ceiling < 3000' -
Color ICAO blue
** VFR is vis > 5SM & ceiling > 3000' - Color ICAO green
**
** Ceiling is altitude of lowest cloud type of BKN or OVC
*/
$vis = $weather->decoded_metar['visibility'][0]['miles']; // Get
visibility
$layer = $weather->decoded_metar['clouds']; // Get the cloud layers
$ceiling = 999999; // Init ceiling value
$group_num = 0; // Init cloud group value (there could be up to 3
cloud groups)
foreach ($layer as $key=>$group) { // For each cloud group
/*
** We only care about OVC or BKN layers
*/
if (($group['condition'] == 'OVC') || ($group['condition'] == 'BKN') ||
($group['condition'] == 'VV')) {
if ($ceiling > $group['ft']) { // Look for the lowest ceiling
$ceiling = $group['ft']; // Records it if lower
$group_num = $key; // Record the cloud group it occurs in
} // end of found a lower ceiling
} // end of condition OVC || BKN || VV
} // end of checking all cloud layers
if (($vis <= 1) || ($ceiling <= 500)) {
$flight_condition = 'LIFR';
($vis <= 1) ? $vis_flag = true : $vis_flag = false;
($ceiling <= 500) ? $ceiling_flag = true : $ceiling_flag = false;
}
elseif (($vis <= 3) || ($ceiling <= 1000)) {
$flight_condition = 'IFR';
($vis <= 3) ? $vis_flag = true : $vis_flag = false;
($ceiling <= 1000) ? $ceiling_flag = true : $ceiling_flag = false;
}
elseif (($vis <= 5) || ($ceiling <= 3000)) {
$flight_condition = 'MVFR';
($vis <= 5) ? $vis_flag = true : $vis_flag = false;
($ceiling <= 3000) ? $ceiling_flag = true : $ceiling_flag = false;
}
else {
$flight_condition = 'VFR';
$vis_flag = false;
$ceiling_flag = false;
}
echo '<tr><td valign="top"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="1" ';
switch ($flight_condition)
{
case 'LIFR': $color="#FF00FF"; break; // Purple color
case 'IFR' : $color="#FF0000"; break; // Red color
case 'MVFR': $color="#0000FF"; break; // Blue color
case 'VFR' : $color="#009900"; break; // Green color
default : $color="#000000"; // Should never happen but in case
leave it black color
}
echo 'color="'.$color.'"><strong>'.$icao."</strong></font></td>\n"; //
print the airport code and close the cell
/*
** Now we want to alert the user if the METAR data is old. So we will color
the time stamp red if
** its is more than 1 hour old.
*/
echo '<td valign="top"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="1" '; // Start the cell and set the font
if ($weather->metar_time < time()-3600) { // METAR is more then 1
hour old
echo 'color="#FF0000">';
} else { // METAR is less than 1 hour old
echo 'color="#000000">';
} // end of METAR time check
echo $time.'</font>';
/*
** print remainder of the METAR
**
** Plan to add color high-light of Vis or cloud causing !VFR flight
conditiond
*/
echo '<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"
size="1">'.substr($metar,12,strlen($metar))."</td></tr>\n";
} // end of valid METAR
} // end of FOREACH loop on array of airports
echo "</table></font><br>\n";
?>
</td>
<td width="40%" valign="top">
<?php
$text = new $type($weather);
foreach ($tAirport as $icao) {
$text->weather->set_icao($icao); // Set the Airport code
$taf = $text->weather->decode_taf(); // Get and decode the TAF
if($taf['taf']!='') { // If I've got a valid TAF then
$parts = explode(' ', $taf['taf']); // Break into parts so we can
color various bits
$num_parts = count($parts); // Count the parts
$time = $parts[1]; // Extract the time issued part
echo '<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="1"
cellspacing="1">';
echo '<tr><td valign="top" bgcolor="#99CCFF"><font face="Verdana,
Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><strong>TAF '.$icao."
".$time."</strong></font></td></tr>\n";
echo '<tr><td valign="top"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="1">';
while(list($i,$period) = each($taf['periods2'])) {
echo $period['data']."<br>\n";
} // end of while list of TAF periods
echo "</td></tr>\n";
echo "</table>";
} // end of valid TAF
} // end of FOREACH loop on array of airports
?>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>