We have released HWphp 3.993. This release provides support for the GFS LAMP and a few bug fixes.

• Download HWphp 3.993 Full distribution or Upgrade
• HWphp 3.993 Documentation

A few of the changes include (See the complete change list for the full listing):

• Added support for GFS LAMP with hourly forecasts
• Replaced ETA with NAM for Hourly forecasts
• Other Hourly/MOS bug fixes and tweaks

If upgrading from a previous version of HW3php you only need to download the appropriate upgrade file listed under “upgrade distributions”. To determine the version of your current HW3 installation,  you can normally query your HW3 installation by appending “?version=1″ to your HW3 URL. I.E.  hw3.php?version=1

NOTE: If you are using HW3 with a debug mode password required then the above URL may not display the HW3version information. In such cases you may need to query your HW3 installation requesting debug output with your debug password. I.E. hw3.php?debug=1&debugpw=XXXXX (where XXXXX is your debug password)

We have released HWphp 3.991. This release provides a few bug fixes.

• Download HWphp 3.991 Full distribution or Upgrade
• HWphp 3.991 Documentation
• HWphp 3.991 Complete Change List

A few of the changes include (See the complete change list for the full listing):

• Fixed bug in Template.php that was causing url_pands to do a double urlencode
• Fixed a type that prevented “template_html_encode=#” from setting the global encode option.
• Implemented fix when using html encoding with a formatting command
• Change in the hw3.php to fix issue with some users of the use_sites functionality having issues.

If upgrading from a previous version of HW3php you only need to download the appropriate upgrade file listed under “upgrade distributions”. To determine the version of your current HW3 installation,  you can normally query your HW3 installation by appending “?version=1″ to your HW3 URL. I.E.  hw3.php?version=1

NOTE: If you are using HW3 with a debug mode password required then the above URL may not display the HW3version information. In such cases you may need to query your HW3 installation requesting debug output with your debug password. I.E. hw3.php?debug=1&debugpw=XXXXX (where XXXXX is your debug password)

We have released HWphp 3.99. This release adds some new features and many bug fixes to HW3php.

• Download HWphp 3.99 Full distribution or Upgrade
• HWphp 3.99 Documentation
• HWphp 3.99 Complete Change List

A few of the new features include (See the complete change list for the full listing):

• New “Sounds Like” search capability when using Mysql 4.1 or newer. This new feature allows HW3 to display a list of potential cities when a user misspells a city name (something I do often!).
  Note: This feature is off by default for backward capability. Turn on by adding “max_search_type=3″ in the [Database Access] section of the configs/hw3.ini.php
• Support for loading custom configs based on the domain being accessed. This is a great feature if you have multiple domains parked on a single HW3 installation and need to display a custom template set and/or default locations for each domain.
  Note: HW3 licensing is per domain the output is used on. When using this feature ensure that you have proper licensing for each domain that is being used.
• Improved how HW3php handles apostrophes in location names which should correct template errors that occassionally occurred for some users.
• Added some items for security such as the default “.htaccess” file which will block many of the bots that may attempt to hit the HW3php install looking for users with versions prior to HWphp 3.986.
• Improved integration for HWdata subscribers with international subscriptions. Now supports, snow fall, thunderstorms, POP  and Canadian postal code searches.
• Many other Bug fixes and improvements.

This should be the last major release of HW3php as HW4 is right around the corner. We are planning to launch our new website and a HW4 public downloadable beta in mid October.  We will be posting more information on HW4 in the next few days.

The development of HAMweather 4 (HW4) is going quite smoothly, and several new features have been integrated into its core code base. One such feature is the ability to cache the output of a request so that future requests within a set cache time can simply output the cached page without having to load and process the various modules and data. For high volume access this feature can save a lot of time and resources. HAMweather has been using this feature on our Tropics Center (which uses HW4 alpha code) with great success. Thus, HW3cacher was developed so that HW3 users can benefit from the increase in efficiency as well until HW4 is released.

The HW3cacher script is used as a front end to the HW3php script. When installed, the script will cache HW output on the original request. Then on future requests for the same URL the data in the cache will be used and the HW3 script will not be loaded. If the cached output has expired, then HW3 will be loaded and the output regenerated and cached once more.

During our testing a standard HW3php request for a local forecast used up to 4MB of memory and 1.3 seconds to fetch, parse and output the data. When using HW3cacher, once cached subsequent requests for the same URL used only 0.25-0.5MB of memory and only took 0.02 seconds to output to the web browser. This data shows that subsequent requests for the same URL use up to 94% less memory and are outputted up to 65 times faster than calling HW3 directly. Note that each individual user/server will experience different results based on the available server resources, network speeds and server specifications.

While the HW3cacher script is primarily designed for high volume websites that receive a high number of HW3 requests for the same data within a short amount of time, other sites can benefit from HW3cacher as well. For example, a site can benefit from HW3cacher if weather data is included on the home page via calls to HW3php or when inclement weather occurs in a location and the site receives an abnormally larger number of requests for a specific local forecast etc.

Downloads Via Plugins Area: http://support.hamweather.com/dload.php?action=file&file_id=169

Documentation:
HTML: http://www.hamweather.com/hw3/docs/hw3php/HW3Cacher_php/
PDF: http://www.hamweather.com/hw3/docs/hw3php/HW3Cacher_php/HW3Cacher_php.pdf

Support: http://support.hamweather.com

Thank you Kiko! 

Thanks to Tropical Storm Kiko, I was finally able to debug the wind field forecast plotting in the HWTropical 3 plugin.  HWTropical 3 uses data obtained from the forecast advisory product to generate the maps. The feature includes the ability to display the wind fields for each individual location or to have a forecast swath plotted. That data supports plotting forecasted wind fields at 34, 50 and 64 knot intervals.  I will be cleaning the code and adding support to the templates for including in HWTropical 3.0 Final.  Look for a release over the next day or two.

Below is a sample Wind Field Forecast map. Visit our tropics area for the latest image: