You will notice immediately that WunderMap uses Google Maps as the underlying mapping service. The zoomed in map displays weather station information by default. This includes the temperature and wind strength and direction, with options to switch to dew point / humidity or precipitation instead. A click on a weather station displays all available information, plus forecasts.

Additional weather related information are selectable on the right. From severe weather and satellite imagery to webcams, traffic or storm reports. All that it takes to enable the new layers is to check an item to have it displayed on the map. Most offer options to change data sources or display different kinds of information on the map.

One interesting option is available with a click on the clock icon next to the selected location. Here you can go back in time (hour, day, month or year) for information about the weather location at a specific date and time in history.

You can furthermore select future dates (in the day range) to see weather forecasts on the map.

The different layers, and the ability to go back in time, make WunderMap an interesting service. It is usually not something that you would go to to get a weather report though. The service has its specialized uses, you can for instance pull past data from holiday locations to see how the weather conditions have been during your planned stay.

Some layers are only available if you are displaying a location in the United States. You can check out Wundermap here.

The notification displays information about the precipitation, e.g. snow fall or rain, as well as its reach and strength.

A click opens the rain alarm website with a Google Maps view of the selected location. Here you find precipitation data over time, a local weather map so to speak. You can zoom in and out of the map which seems to be completely independent of the browser extension. Users who just want to use rain alarm this way can open the website to do just that.

The website offers precipitation data of the last two hours. You can go back or forward in time to see the intensity at a specific period in time.

The Rain Alarm options can be used to change the location for the weather forecasts and warnings automatically or manually. There is unfortunately no option to use multiple profiles for different locations in the world. Only one location can be active at a time.

Text notifications can be turned off, and sound notifications turned on here as well. Other options include changing the search radius and interval, the sensitivity which defines when alarms get triggered automatically, the time format and units of measurement.

Rain Alarm can be a handy extension for Chrome users who need to be in the known all the time. It is not a full blown weather extension though, but if precipitation is what you want, then this is what you get.

Are you using weather services or weather extensions? Let me know in the comments.

The free portable application sWeather has been released as part of Donation Coder’s fundraising event in March. The application has been designed to display local weather information in the Windows system tray and the program window. It is therefor a handy alternative for users who look up weather reports regularly on the Internet.

Configuration is a little bit complicated, as it uses WOEID information used by Yahoo Weather. A WOEID, or Where On Earth ID, is used by Yahoo Weather to determine locations in the world.

Users therefor need to enter a place’s WOEID to get local weather reports for that location. To do that they need to visit the Yahoo Weather website and enter their location or zip in the form near the top of the page.

The last part of the url of the page that displays the weather information on Yahoo is the WOEID.

http://weather.yahoo.com/united-states/new-york/new-york-2459115/

The WOEID for New York is 2459115.

This ID needs to be entered for every location that the user wants to access weather reports for.

Locations are added in the configuration which is accessed via the Options menu at the top of the program window.

Users can add as many locations as they want provided that they have the WOEID at hand. The local weather app uses non-metric units by default which can be switched in the options as well.

The app displays the local weather report of one location at a time, with the option to switch between all configured locations with the mouse (click or mouse-wheel) or keyboard shortcuts (left, right or up, down).

Weather information are detailed and include different information next to the location’s current temperature. Among the information are a weather forecast for the next day, the “felt-temperature”, the humidity and wind strength.

The application window can be closed without losing access to the weather information. The system tray icon displays the current temperature and current condition in icon form.

It is not possible to switch locations if the app is minimized. For that, it would need to be opened again with a double-click on the system tray icon.

Interested users can download the sWeather application directly from Skwire’s Empire over at the DCMembers website. The program is portable and should work on most editions of the Windows operating system. It was tested on a 64-bit Windows 7 edition.

Weather Desktop Background basically does the same for the desktop wallpaper. The program changes the desktop wallpaper based on the weather condition so that users know them on a glance.

How does it work? It begins with a download of the program from the developer page. The program is portable and can be started right after it has been downloaded and unpacked on the system. It has to be noted that the program will only work on Windows 7 (and probably Windows Server 2008 R2).

It begins by selecting a location in the world that should be used for the weather background images. But the location is just the first step. Users now need to specify desktop background images for each weather condition since the default weather conditions display only a text of the condition.

This can take some time considering that the program lists 31 different weather conditions for which the user could add a unique background image. Images are added by clicking on a weather condition and selecting an image from the local system.

The program offers no options to change the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius or the wind speed from mph to km/h.

Weather Desktop Background is compatible with all versions of the Windows 7 operating system. Users can download the application from the developer’s Deviantart page. (via)

I then tried to drag and drop the icons to the status bar with no success. It was only after opening the options that I found the setting to move the weather information to another toolbar in the firefox browser.

The add-on can supply weather information from all over the world. The default location is New York, which can be changed in the options. By default the current and projected weather conditions are displayed in the selected Firefox toolbar. Moving the mouse over the toolbar icon displays detailed information about the condition.

A right-click on an icon opens a context menu. Here it is possible to switch the weather reporting to a different location in the world, open graphic weather reports or open the add-on’s options. First time users should open the options to configure the add-on properly.

Among the most important settings are the units and the locations at the top of the configuration menu. Available units are Fahrenheit or Celsius for temperature, and miles per hour, kilometers per hour or meters per second for wind speed. Locations can be added by entering them in the form city, country. It is possible to change their order and pick on as a default location. The weather conditions of the default location are displayed in the Firefox toolbar by default.

AniWeather offers more than that. Users who scroll further down in the options see that they can add or remove icons from the toolbar. It is possible to add icons for the 2nd to 5th day weather condition, and icons that display alerts, national overview, satellite, radar, uv index, precipitation, temperature and air quality in a graphical view.

The icons can be moved to another toolbar in the appearance section of the options. Here it is also possible to change the popup window size and configure the menu delay. AniWeather is a sophisticated add-on for firefox that can display weather conditions to the user directly in the browser. That’s excellent for users who need those information on a day to day basis.

But this website can help even if you are one of the two people on earth who never watched a Star Wars movie before as it will display an image of the weather conditions as well.

The script that is running on Tom’s website performs an automatic IP lookup of every connecting user, queries the Yahoo weather api to pull the weather conditions of the location and display an image of that weather condition alongside a few lines that point out the Star Wars planet with those weather conditions.

Now everyone who knows Star Wars would probably be able to tell the same thing by looking out of the window and thinking about a planet in the Star Wars universe that would match the weather conditions. But an automated way is more comfortable and the bylines are excellent. Now I just have to find a Tauntaun to to climb inside.

After that you have to configure weather for me by adding the city that you want the weather forecast for and some other settings. You can choose between English and Metric units and opt to save the forecasts. You will have to supply a city code to the program which can be obtained by visiting the my forecast website and entering the city of your choice. Every city has a code in its url that starts with city= ; the number behind that is the city code which needs to be added to weather for me.

The last step would be to click on the button download weather now to my ipod which will download and add the weather information to your iPod. Weather for me has a autosync option which is a command line parameter. To be able to autosync the iPod with the latest forecasts you have to create a shortcut of the file and add the parameter -sync to it. You still need to add it to the autostart of windows to be able to do it automatically.

The options include changing temperature degrees between fahrenheit and celsius as well as turning wind barbs on and off.

You simply move your mouse over a green dot and receive immediately some basic information, name of town, temperature and wind. You receive more information on a left click.

The script also displays positions of webcams on the mapscreen. Users can add new webcams and look at the latest picture of the cam to get an impression of the local weather.

Its a nice little script in my opinion, try it out weatherbonk,

Update: Weatherbonk has been shut down permanently. Google has recently added live weather information to Google Maps.

Just head over to Google Maps and center on the location that you want to get weather reports for. You can hover over countries, regions, cities or other locations. Move your mouse cursor over Traffic afterwards in the upper right corner of the screen and select weather from the available options.

Users who have slow Internet connections may have to wait a few seconds before the maps screen changes. you will notice that the current temperature and the sky cover are visualized for regions and cities on the maps interface.

You can zoom in or out, or move to another region and weather reports are displayed for each and every location that you visit. You can also search for a place to see up to the minute weather reports for it on Google Maps.