Meteorologist FAQ
Common user questions answered and explained
General FAQ's
What changed?
Where can I find of list of changes? Here
Where do I find the latest download?
The latest download can be found here.
Where do I find and can I test beta versions?
A beta version is a test of a new version of Meteorologist before it is released to the general public.
Are beta's safe? Yes, but it may contain code that isn't quite stable yet and cause crashes of Meteorologist (only Meteorologist).
That's the purpose of a beta test.
Beta versions often contain new features so beta testing is a great way to test and give feedback on the new code.
How do you give feedback? Submit feedback here.
If a beta version exists, it can be found here.
To actively look for beta versions, you should select the option in Preferences, Options, Check for beta versions.
You will then be notified when a new beta version exists.
I downloaded Meteorologist, launched Meteorologist and I see nothing. What happened?
The 13" Apple Silicon processor laptop model has proven to extremely popular. The problem is a combination of MacOS 13.0 (and newer) and the 13" screen. There just isn't enough room for everything in the Menu Bar.
Go into System Settings, Control Center, and turn off as many Control Center Modules as you need (Don't Show in Menu Bar). (There is a 15-30 second delay after turning off the option for it to disappear.)
Eventually your City name and Temperature will show up. Once there, click on the city name and temperature, go to Controls, then Preferences.
Click on the Options tab, then turn off Display City Name and possibly turn off Display type (C/F). That should give you back lots of menu bar real estate.
After that, you can go back into Control Center and turn back on any Modules you want displayed.
Beginning with version 4.0.3, when a brand new copy of Meteorologist is launched (or you deleted the ~/Library/Preferences/com.heat.Meteorologist.plist file), it will also launch in the Dock.
If you see still nothing in the Menu bar, click on the Dock icon, go to Meteorologist Preferences then turn off Display City Name as described above.
After you have adjusted the various options, you can turn off the option Display Dock icon.
Every time Meterologist quits, it resets the update frequency to once every 60 minutes.
If you are using the accounts provided within the app, it will be 60 minutes to avoid going over on usage counts. If you have your own account(s), there are no restrictions.
In the Controls, Preferences for Meteorologist, in the Locations tab, if an API key is provided, then the 60 minute restriction is not in effect.
Click on the Keys tab for the URL for information to register an account.
Lastly, if you have multiple locations/accounts and 1 location is still using an account provided within Meteorologist, the 60 minute restriction will remain.
Regardless of the account type, a user can always go to Controls, Refresh (or press ⌘-R after clicking on the temperature) to manually update.
The 60 minute restriction is for automatic (background) updates.
Where can I find that Meteorologist usage survey?
What does Deprecated mean?
In short, it means going away at some point in the future. It could mean the next release. It could mean in 5 releases.
How do I turn on the Radar Display?
The Radar display is automatic and only available for locations that are identified by a latitude and longitude (see below). If you identify by a name, often the service returns the latitude and longitude for you. The radar option will appear as a menu item. Radar is based on the current radar available when the data was refreshed (typically hourly). If you click on the radar image, you should be taken to a webpage displaying the most current radar (often showing motion).
I don't understand pluses and minuses with latitude and longitude?
If you are not familiar with lat/long, minus signs (-) are critial.
UTC Line (Greenwich England)
|
lat/-lon | lat/lon
|
Equator ---------------------------------
|
-lat/-lon | -lat/lon
|
Samples:
USA and Canada: +lat, -lon (41.75,-88.10)
Europe and Asia: +lat, +lon (52.51,12.28)
Australia: -lat, +lon (-33.84,160.65)
Santiago, Chile: -lat, -lon (-33.47,-70.67)
Meteorologist 3.x was rewritten to specific weather sources. How do I choose the city and weather source?
On the Preferences pane, type in the name of the city in the format requested by the weather source (commas, periods, hyphens (minus signs) and spaces do count so pay attention).
In the second column, type in the name as you wish it to appear (home, parents, kids).
The third column is a drop down for the supported weather sources, choose the one you prefer.
In the fourth column you may need to specify an Key for the weather source.
See the Keys tab of the Preference pane for the URL to the weather source and the input city format requested by the weather source.
You may need to register for a key (sometimes called an API or developer key). See the next question.
How do I find the Meteorologist.log file or the com.heat.meteorologist.plist file?
Click on your desktop picture (to ensure you are in the Finder). Hold down the Option key then click on the Go menu. In the Go menu select (click on) Library. You can now let go of the Option key.
For the log file, click on the Log folder and Meteorologist.log is right there. Sort by name if you're having trouble finding it.
For the preferences files, click on the Preferences folder (not the PreferencePanes folder). Again sort by name and com.heat.meteorologist.plist should be right there. Caution, if you delete (or rename) the plist file, it won't take effect until you restart your Mac so restart before you restart Meteorologist.
What's with this Token Key, API Key stuff? I'm not a developer and I don't know what it all means.
Commercial weather services typically limit a free account to 500 or 1,000 calls per day. For an individual that's not a problem. But if everybody using Meteorologist shares the same key, that limit is used up in about 3-4 hours based on where the day first starts (usually the International Date Line or the UTC line in Greenwich England). That's why everybody is encouraged to sign up for their own key where possible.
Some services (Dark Sky) prohibit an application like Meteorologist from requiring its users to do exactly that. They rightly want to be paid for their services. For a normal, paid application, there is nothing wrong with that, it's the cost of doing business. However for an Open Source project like Meteorologist it's a pain.
Using a governmental weather service like NOAA works but only for users in the USA. Canada has a similar offering but other locations, like Africa, Europe and Asia have no known offerings. NOAA and the others are often limited to major areas and those who live in remote places have no reporting. Those in mountainous or valley regions, even 2 miles map distance can be wildly different climates.
Visual Crossing has been gracious to provide Meteorologist with a very large use license. Consider using them as your weather data source.
So how and where do you get this key? On the Preferences pane, click on the Keys tab then the link to your preferred weather provider. When you sign up, if they ask, tell them Meteorologist and point them to the Meteorologist home page: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/heat-meteo.
What happened to Yahoo?
After years of service, Yahoo! shut down their weather API on June 1, 2021. Meteorologist replaced it with VisualCrossing.
What happened with Dark Sky?
In March 2020 Apple acquired Dark Sky. Apple shut down the web services and replaced with WeatherKit that requires macOS 13 (not 10.13).
Why is there a strange symbol (fl) before the temperature sometimes?
To remind you that the temperature displayed is "Feels Like", not the real temperature. If real and "Feels Like" are the same, it won't appear.
Why is the temperature sometimes off when I compare with the same weather source online?
Meteorologist records the temperature in Fahrenheit, then converts to Metric. Sorry, conversion errors.
Why does Meteorologist want to know my location?
Meteorologist has the option to display the weather at the location where you are. You can turn this option off in the preferences. Meteorologist does not keep or share your location.
I told Meteorologist to not use location services but now I've changed my mind. How do I turn it back on?
I'm seeing a temp of 9999° What's up with that?
That is an indication that you either have the city formatted wrong, the wrong API key, or the weather service itself is down. The description following Lat/Long may give you additional details. If the weather service is down, wait a while and try again.
Meteorologist displays too much information when I select "Forecast Inline" and I can't see some attributes such as "high temp." How do I fix it?
You can uncheck the option "Forecast on one line" under the Weather tab. Alternatively, disable some of the forecast items so that the forecast menu only shows the items that you care about (to do this, choose "Edit City" and then click on the "Forecast Items" tab).
How do I get Metric/Celsius Units (Meteorologist only shows Fahrenheit)?
Using the Controls menu select Preferences. Under Global Units, select the metrics you want.
Can I localize Meteo?
Where can I find older versions of Meteorologist?
Can you add weather service XYZ?
How can I have Meteo start up when I log in?
In 10.9 and newer, open System Preferences and then Users and Group. Make sure your account is selected on the left, and then choose the Login Items tab. Click the "+" below the list of programs and choose Meteo from where you have it on your hard drive. Make sure the "Hide" checkbox is not checked.
In 10.3, open System Preferences and then Accounts. Make sure your account is selected on the left, and then choose the Startup Items tab. Click the "+" below the list of programs and choose Meteo from where you have it on your hard drive. Make sure the "Hide" checkbox is not checked.
In 10.2, open System Preferences and then Login Items. Click the Add... button at the bottom and choose Meteo from where you have it on your hard drive.
Instructions for 10.1 are unavailable because none of the developers are still using 10.1. If you are a user of 10.1, please leave us comment on the news forums with instructions so that others may use them.
Where do I find older versions of Meteorologist to download?
The older versions can be found here.
What is an FAQ?
FAQ is an abbreviation for Frequently Asked Question. FAQ may not translate well into languages other than English.
Can I show my gratitude for this application?
Open Source applications are free and will always be. But if you want to contribute to somebody, find and click on their name in the discussion forums, and click on the PayPay link under their Personal Tools.
What changed?
Where can I find of list of changes? Here
Where do I find the latest download?
The latest download can be found here.
Where do I find and can I test beta versions?
A beta version is a test of a new version of Meteorologist before it is released to the general public.
Are beta's safe? Yes, but it may contain code that isn't quite stable yet and cause crashes of Meteorologist (only Meteorologist). That's the purpose of a beta test. Beta versions often contain new features so beta testing is a great way to test and give feedback on the new code. How do you give feedback? Submit feedback here.
If a beta version exists, it can be found here.
To actively look for beta versions, you should select the option in Preferences, Options, Check for beta versions. You will then be notified when a new beta version exists.
I downloaded Meteorologist, launched Meteorologist and I see nothing. What happened?
The 13" Apple Silicon processor laptop model has proven to extremely popular. The problem is a combination of MacOS 13.0 (and newer) and the 13" screen. There just isn't enough room for everything in the Menu Bar.
Go into System Settings, Control Center, and turn off as many Control Center Modules as you need (Don't Show in Menu Bar). (There is a 15-30 second delay after turning off the option for it to disappear.) Eventually your City name and Temperature will show up. Once there, click on the city name and temperature, go to Controls, then Preferences. Click on the Options tab, then turn off Display City Name and possibly turn off Display type (C/F). That should give you back lots of menu bar real estate. After that, you can go back into Control Center and turn back on any Modules you want displayed.Beginning with version 4.0.3, when a brand new copy of Meteorologist is launched (or you deleted the ~/Library/Preferences/com.heat.Meteorologist.plist file), it will also launch in the Dock. If you see still nothing in the Menu bar, click on the Dock icon, go to Meteorologist Preferences then turn off Display City Name as described above.
After you have adjusted the various options, you can turn off the option Display Dock icon.
Every time Meterologist quits, it resets the update frequency to once every 60 minutes.
If you are using the accounts provided within the app, it will be 60 minutes to avoid going over on usage counts. If you have your own account(s), there are no restrictions.
In the Controls, Preferences for Meteorologist, in the Locations tab, if an API key is provided, then the 60 minute restriction is not in effect. Click on the Keys tab for the URL for information to register an account. Lastly, if you have multiple locations/accounts and 1 location is still using an account provided within Meteorologist, the 60 minute restriction will remain. Regardless of the account type, a user can always go to Controls, Refresh (or press ⌘-R after clicking on the temperature) to manually update. The 60 minute restriction is for automatic (background) updates.Where can I find that Meteorologist usage survey?
What does Deprecated mean?
In short, it means going away at some point in the future. It could mean the next release. It could mean in 5 releases.
How do I turn on the Radar Display?
The Radar display is automatic and only available for locations that are identified by a latitude and longitude (see below). If you identify by a name, often the service returns the latitude and longitude for you. The radar option will appear as a menu item. Radar is based on the current radar available when the data was refreshed (typically hourly). If you click on the radar image, you should be taken to a webpage displaying the most current radar (often showing motion).
I don't understand pluses and minuses with latitude and longitude?
If you are not familiar with lat/long, minus signs (-) are critial.
UTC Line (Greenwich England)
|
lat/-lon | lat/lon
|
Equator ---------------------------------
|
-lat/-lon | -lat/lon
|
Samples:
USA and Canada: +lat, -lon (41.75,-88.10)
Europe and Asia: +lat, +lon (52.51,12.28)
Australia: -lat, +lon (-33.84,160.65)
Santiago, Chile: -lat, -lon (-33.47,-70.67)
Meteorologist 3.x was rewritten to specific weather sources. How do I choose the city and weather source?
On the Preferences pane, type in the name of the city in the format requested by the weather source (commas, periods, hyphens (minus signs) and spaces do count so pay attention). In the second column, type in the name as you wish it to appear (home, parents, kids). The third column is a drop down for the supported weather sources, choose the one you prefer. In the fourth column you may need to specify an Key for the weather source. See the Keys tab of the Preference pane for the URL to the weather source and the input city format requested by the weather source. You may need to register for a key (sometimes called an API or developer key). See the next question.
How do I find the Meteorologist.log file or the com.heat.meteorologist.plist file?
Click on your desktop picture (to ensure you are in the Finder). Hold down the Option key then click on the Go menu. In the Go menu select (click on) Library. You can now let go of the Option key.
For the log file, click on the Log folder and Meteorologist.log is right there. Sort by name if you're having trouble finding it.
For the preferences files, click on the Preferences folder (not the PreferencePanes folder). Again sort by name and com.heat.meteorologist.plist should be right there. Caution, if you delete (or rename) the plist file, it won't take effect until you restart your Mac so restart before you restart Meteorologist.
What's with this Token Key, API Key stuff? I'm not a developer and I don't know what it all means.
Commercial weather services typically limit a free account to 500 or 1,000 calls per day. For an individual that's not a problem. But if everybody using Meteorologist shares the same key, that limit is used up in about 3-4 hours based on where the day first starts (usually the International Date Line or the UTC line in Greenwich England). That's why everybody is encouraged to sign up for their own key where possible.
Some services (Dark Sky) prohibit an application like Meteorologist from requiring its users to do exactly that. They rightly want to be paid for their services. For a normal, paid application, there is nothing wrong with that, it's the cost of doing business. However for an Open Source project like Meteorologist it's a pain.
Using a governmental weather service like NOAA works but only for users in the USA. Canada has a similar offering but other locations, like Africa, Europe and Asia have no known offerings. NOAA and the others are often limited to major areas and those who live in remote places have no reporting. Those in mountainous or valley regions, even 2 miles map distance can be wildly different climates.
Visual Crossing has been gracious to provide Meteorologist with a very large use license. Consider using them as your weather data source.
So how and where do you get this key? On the Preferences pane, click on the Keys tab then the link to your preferred weather provider. When you sign up, if they ask, tell them Meteorologist and point them to the Meteorologist home page: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/heat-meteo.
What happened to Yahoo?
After years of service, Yahoo! shut down their weather API on June 1, 2021. Meteorologist replaced it with VisualCrossing.
What happened with Dark Sky?
In March 2020 Apple acquired Dark Sky. Apple shut down the web services and replaced with WeatherKit that requires macOS 13 (not 10.13).
Why is there a strange symbol (fl) before the temperature sometimes?
To remind you that the temperature displayed is "Feels Like", not the real temperature. If real and "Feels Like" are the same, it won't appear.
Why is the temperature sometimes off when I compare with the same weather source online?
Meteorologist records the temperature in Fahrenheit, then converts to Metric. Sorry, conversion errors.
Why does Meteorologist want to know my location?
Meteorologist has the option to display the weather at the location where you are. You can turn this option off in the preferences. Meteorologist does not keep or share your location.
I told Meteorologist to not use location services but now I've changed my mind. How do I turn it back on?
I'm seeing a temp of 9999° What's up with that?
That is an indication that you either have the city formatted wrong, the wrong API key, or the weather service itself is down. The description following Lat/Long may give you additional details. If the weather service is down, wait a while and try again.
Meteorologist displays too much information when I select "Forecast Inline" and I can't see some attributes such as "high temp." How do I fix it?
You can uncheck the option "Forecast on one line" under the Weather tab. Alternatively, disable some of the forecast items so that the forecast menu only shows the items that you care about (to do this, choose "Edit City" and then click on the "Forecast Items" tab).
How do I get Metric/Celsius Units (Meteorologist only shows Fahrenheit)?
Using the Controls menu select Preferences. Under Global Units, select the metrics you want.
Can I localize Meteo?
Where can I find older versions of Meteorologist?
Can you add weather service XYZ?
How can I have Meteo start up when I log in?
In 10.9 and newer, open System Preferences and then Users and Group. Make sure your account is selected on the left, and then choose the Login Items tab. Click the "+" below the list of programs and choose Meteo from where you have it on your hard drive. Make sure the "Hide" checkbox is not checked.
In 10.3, open System Preferences and then Accounts. Make sure your account is selected on the left, and then choose the Startup Items tab. Click the "+" below the list of programs and choose Meteo from where you have it on your hard drive. Make sure the "Hide" checkbox is not checked.
In 10.2, open System Preferences and then Login Items. Click the Add... button at the bottom and choose Meteo from where you have it on your hard drive.
Instructions for 10.1 are unavailable because none of the developers are still using 10.1. If you are a user of 10.1, please leave us comment on the news forums with instructions so that others may use them.
Where do I find older versions of Meteorologist to download?
The older versions can be found here.
What is an FAQ?
FAQ is an abbreviation for Frequently Asked Question. FAQ may not translate well into languages other than English.
Can I show my gratitude for this application?
Open Source applications are free and will always be. But if you want to contribute to somebody, find and click on their name in the discussion forums, and click on the PayPay link under their Personal Tools.