Forecasts and Icons

Weather Display uses a number of different methods to determine which current weather icon will be displayed, e.g.

• Weather Display's analysis of the weather default
• WM918/WMR918/VP/La Crosse 2310 forecast icon
• Weather Display's interpretation of downloaded METAR reports
• User specified thresholds for fog, rain, snow
• User selection

WM918/WMR918 forecast icon

If you set this to display, the icon that appears on the programs screen will be the forecast icon from the station. This icon will also be used in the summary.gif file.

If you select "Do not display", then it will not be visible at all.

If you select "Auto update", then you can have the icon updated via input daily weather, or have it updated from a downloaded METAR (see the section Getting Weather Reports and Metar Data).

Weather Display's interpretation of METARs

Weather Display can extract the "Conditions" phrase from a downloaded METAR. If you have ticked "Coded" instead of "Decoded", it will use the 2 letter condition codes in the METAR, e.g. RN for rain, and use that to determine the icon to be displayed.

1. Click Setup, Summary Image/Icon Setup.
2. In approximately the middle of the left side of the page, there is a group of selection boxes for METAR reports. Click those boxes that support your preferences.
3. Click OK.
4. Click on Setup, Setup FTP/.../METAR.
5. Click the FTP/METAR Download tab.
6. In the METAR Download group in the lower half of the page, find and click the box labelled Use this METAR for ....
7. Click OK.

Make sure you have a METAR name selected that is in the list of METARs to download, that you have download times set, and that the switch is ON (green).

User specified thresholds

You may select the thresholds for Weather Display to use to determine if current conditions suggest the use of the Snow, Fog, or Windy icons.

You can get Weather Display to override the METAR report if you tick that option in the METAR icon setup, i.e. if you record rain or strong winds, then Weather Display will update the icon regardless of what is included in the METAR reports. This is a good idea if the METAR you are using is from an airport that is some distance away. Also some METARs are only updated every hour, so the conditions could have changed since the last METAR was produced.

1. Click on Setup, Summary Image/Icon Setup.
2. Approximately one-third of the way down the page, find and set the desired threshold.
3. Click OK.

Note: If you have a solar sensor, you can get the icon updated from that (see the solar sensor setup).

User selection

1. Click the Input Daily Weather menu.
2. Click an icon of your choice.
3. Click the box labelled Use this image as the icon,....
4. Click OK.

This selection may be made at any time to represent the current weather. Such a selection is immediately effective, and remains so until changed by the user, or user selection is revoked.

If you cannot find a suitable icon, go to the section Replacing WD's weather icons or see the link on the Weather Display download page.