Blog

by Paul Douglas A tropical storm named “Agnes” flooded my home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1972; a traumatic event that ultimately led me to pursue a degree in meteorology at nearby Penn State. Many of us have a flood-related story or close encounter, and rising water is impacting more Americans with every passing year. There is precedent for concern: according to NOAA only extreme heat has claimed more American lives over the last 30 years. In fact, flooding is the costliest natural disaster in the United States. It accounted for more than $268 billion in damage in 2017, a number...

Early this year, we teased the new major version of our AerisWeather iOS SDK, version 3.0, with several public betas to begin testing and experimenting with. We’re excited to announce that as of the end of May, the official 3.0 version has been released. In fact, we’re already up to version 3.0.2 as we’ve been releasing several bug fixes and improvements since the initial release of 3.0 at the end of May. In case you missed it, here are the biggest changes in version 3.0: Naming Changes for API Endpoint Classes In version 2.0 of the iOS SDK, you would...

A couple weeks ago we introduced the WeatherBlox wizard, but we weren’t going to stop there. We doubled down and added Air Quality views and a full page layout to our WeatherBlox Wizard. Air Quality Views There are 3 views available with our new AQI views, each of which provides an elegant depiction of pollutant data in or near your neighborhood. You can easily configure your preferred view in Step 3 of the wizard under the Data Type option. Let’s go over each individual view: Observations The observations view generates an estimated AQI based on a combination of nearby observation...

Introducing the latest and greatest weather content tool – Aeris WeatherBlox Wizard.   Last year we released WeatherBlox to the public and saw a lot of awesome integrations.  We decided this wasn’t enough and wanted to make it even easier for users of all skill levels.  After many long nights of brainstorming and early mornings fueled by coffee, the WeatherBlox Wizard was born. What Kind of Sorcery is This? The WeatherBlox Wizard is a unique tool that walks the user through the setup of our homegrown WeatherBlox.  The best part is you don’t need to be a developer to plug and play with the options!  The wizard will prompt the user...

by Paul Douglas “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work” said, Mark Twain. Most of us have had a close call with lightning and no wonder. Cloud to ground lightning strikes the Earth approximately 50 times a second – roughly 1.4 billion flashes every year. According to NOAA, an average of 47 Americans are struck and killed by lightning annually – deadlier than tornadoes and hurricanes many years. Lightning is terrifying and vaguely mysterious – scientists don’t begin to have all the answers. But it serves a purpose in nature. These crackling electrostatic...

Severe Weather season is in full swing in the US and that means lightning strikes are a common concern.  According to the UK Met Office, there are over 1.4 billion lightning strikes globally per year or around 44 per second.  That’s a lot of lightning, and now it’s available for use with our new Lightning Strike API endpoints! As a value-added reseller of Earth Networks Total Lightning Network, we have been working hard to add lightning to our Weather API offerings. Last year, we added lightning strikes to the Aeris Maps Platform (AMP) and today we are announcing the addition...

Aeris Pulse for Android – it Feels Like Something is Missing… Since you updated to Oreo, you may have noticed that something was missing from your Aeris Pulse for Android app. One of the changes that came with our Oreo notification update is to default the persistent notification to off. If you’re missing it (like I was), here’s how to get it back!   Aeris Pulse Settings Ok, first let’s turn that option back on. Open Pulse and swipe down on the main view. Next, at the top of the locations view, tap the settings icon in the upper left...

As spring turns to summer and everyone begins spending more time outdoors, the air we breathe is a concern for many. With most of the world’s population affected, this is not only a local concern but a global one–one that our clients care about. So we are proud to announce the addition of the Air Quality API to the AerisWeather weather API. The air quality API endpoints within AerisWeather’s API offers the ability to obtain global air quality observations and forecasts via two new endpoints: airquality and airquality/forecasts. The new endpoints are available today as part of our Aeris Premium...

by Paul Douglas An old joke insists that Californians don’t trust air they can’t actually see. Unfortunately, air pollution is no laughing matter. According to recent research, more than 95% of the world’s population breathes unsafe air, contributing to more than 6 million deaths worldwide in 2017. In the US alone studies suggest 7,000 to as many as 200,000 premature deaths occur annually as a result of unhealthy air. At this rate, a conservative estimate can state that air pollution claims as many lives as traffic accidents each year. The statistics are staggering, but the first step is understanding. Air...

It’s an exciting time to be working in the loft studios of AerisWeather development. The powerful Aeris Maps Platform has become a leading weather map service. Our radar coverage has expanded to new areas of the globe like Australia and South Korea. Aeris WeatherBlox, the service that enables web devs to easily add weather content to their sites are always adding new blox. We’re constantly pushing updates to the iOS and Android toolkits to keep them up to date with the fast-moving mobile scene. Here at AerisWeather we sometimes say “the weather never sleeps”, and for the toolkit team that...