NOAA Weather Center Widget

What is the NOAA Weather Center widget?

The NOAA Weather Center widget is a new, powerful, and fun way to get all the weather information you need. Just enter your address, city, or zip code and you get instant access to forecasts, current conditions, animated radar, and important weather alert bulletins. All of the data comes straight from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service.

How do I get started?

1. Download the widget below.
2. Enter a location on the “back” and verify that the county it finds is correct.
3. Hit “Done” to return to the front, and then select any mode: Forecast, Current (conditions), Radar, or Alerts (severe weather watches, warnings, and advisories).

Where will it work?

The NOAA Weather Center widget gets all of its data from NOAA’s National Weather Service, which is a United States government agency (see the disclaimer for more information). That means that it should work almost anywhere in the United States or its territories. However, since it also uses the service at GeoCoder.us to get location data (translating your address or city into latitude and longitude coordinates), it won’t work in places that GeoCoder.us does not have the necessary information for.

What are the system requirements? (or) Why can’t I see the widget?

The NOAA Weather Center widget requires a computer running Mac OS X 10.4.7 or greater–this is because of the use of Quartz Composer for large parts of the presentation layer. A graphics card that supports Quartz Extreme is required (for the most part this excludes ATI Rage graphics cards, and any PCI graphics cards). A computer with a Core Image capable graphics card is highly recommended. This widget has been tested successfully on a MacBook CoreDuo (1.83GHz) and an iBook G4 (800MHz).

What do the different alert colors mean?

When the “Alerts” quadrant flashes red, it means that there is a severe weather warning posted for your county. If it flashes yellow, then there is a severe weather watch. Green means a weather advisory has been issued. Blue represents any other known type of product issued for the county, such as routine forecasts. A purple display occurs when there is a product available, but the NOAA Weather Center widget cannot determine the type.

Why is it so big?

Yes, the widget is a bit large (300 x 300 pixels), as widgets go. The primary reason for the large size is the Radar display...if it got much smaller you really wouldn’t be able to see much. On the plus side, if you are like many users, you already have a weather forecast widget and a radar widget on your Dashboard, and since the NOAA Weather Center widget gives you both of those capabilities and more in an attractive, elegantly designed, easy-to-use package, you may actually be able to save space in your dashboard!

What if I always want to see the Forecast (or Radar, Current conditions, or Alerts)?

Of course you can! When using the widget, click the area you want to see by default (Forecast, Current, Radar, or Alerts). If you dismiss the dashboard without clicking the “

” button, the next time you open the Dashboard the widget will automatically switch back to that mode (whichever one you viewed last).

Why doesn’t it find my location?

There are a number of reasons this can happen. First, remember that the NOAA Weather Center only works in the United States (see above), so locations in other countries won’t work. If you enter a U.S. address and it says it was not found, it could be that your location is part of recent construction, or is otherwise not yet included in the database over at GeoCoder.us. If it finds your location, but says it can’t determine the county, this sometimes happens just because the way GeoCoder.us returns the county is not spelled or written exactly the same way as it is in the NOAA data that the widget matches against (e.g. “East Baton Rouge” vs. “E. Baton Rouge”). In these cases you should be able to select the correct county from the drop-down list.

How do I get it?

Normally, if you are using Safari and you meet the system requirements above, you can just click the download link below and answer the resulting prompts affirmatively to automatically install the widget. If you are having trouble, try the extended instructions below

NOTICE:

This software is not produced, supported, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, or any other government entity. The appearance of the NOAA acronym, logo, or other emblems are used as permitted and only serve to indicate and give necessary credit for the source of the data. Do not contact NOAA or the National Weather Service for support of this software.

What if I’m still having trouble installing the widget?

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is required. If you're using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget's icon in the Widget Bar to open it. If you're using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget's icon in the Widget Bar to open it.

What if I find a bug or have a suggestion?

NOAA Weather Center Widget