Think I figured out a potential explanation to my question.
I suppose that when ST moved the stock SmartWeather Station Tile to use the new TWC API, that PWS was lost. takissd DH still calls old methods that work with PWS and although were supposed to be turned off today, probably actually weren’t. So without an update, takissd DH will likely fail when the old calls are in fact decommissioned.
I have an API key and would love to figure out how to add it to the updated SmartWeather Station Tile to get my PWS data again…
Request app from rboy
As an fyi this was the official email:
The WU API has been around since 2010 to help you develop apps and websites as well as manage your Personal Weather Station data. During that time, we’ve watched you build amazing products and visualize weather data with creativity and purpose.
Over the years, our infrastructure has been unable to keep up with the growing numbers of users coming to us for API data. This has led to higher costs as we worked to keep the service stable and dependable. Eventually, we realized we’d need to make drastic changes or risk serious problems for our API.
As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to retire the Weather Underground API. The Weather Company, which acquired WU back in 2012, offers a powerful suite of enterprise-grade APIs that might be better suited to meet your scale and performance needs while offering a broader range of weather data. You can see these products here.
Here’s what you need to know going forward:
Your subscriptions, and therefore access, will continue to work through 12/31/2018.
If you are a paying WU API customer, you will receive a call from a representative from The Weather Company, and IBM business, to discuss transition options to other API services. If you’d like to have these conversations sooner, contact us.
If you are a Personal Weather Station owner, you will receive more information about our plan to offer free access to the data you provide to Weather Underground. We’ll reach out once that plan has been finalized.
For developers who use WU API data for non-commercial purposes, you will have access to a new plan for a personal use, low call volume API. Stay tuned for more details as we build this out.
The WU Forum will continue to be the best place to connect, keep you informed, share your feedback and get your questions answered as we go through this process.
We are grateful for your commitment to Weather Underground and appreciate your understanding and support as we work through this process. These changes will allow us to continually improve our services and develop new features to keep WU a thriving place for you for many years to come.
Thanks for being part of the community! Sincerely, The WU Team The WU API has been around since 2010 to help you develop apps and websites as well as manage your Personal Weather Station data. During that time, we’ve watched you build amazing products and visualize weather data with creativity and purpose.
Over the years, our infrastructure has been unable to keep up with the growing numbers of users coming to us for API data. This has led to higher costs as we worked to keep the service stable and dependable. Eventually, we realized we’d need to make drastic changes or risk serious problems for our API.
As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to retire the Weather Underground API. The Weather Company, which acquired WU back in 2012, offers a powerful suite of enterprise-grade APIs that might be better suited to meet your scale and performance needs while offering a broader range of weather data. You can see these products here.
Here’s what you need to know going forward:
Your subscriptions, and therefore access, will continue to work through 12/31/2018.
If you are a paying WU API customer, you will receive a call from a representative from The Weather Company, and IBM business, to discuss transition options to other API services. If you’d like to have these conversations sooner, contact us.
If you are a Personal Weather Station owner, you will receive more information about our plan to offer free access to the data you provide to Weather Underground. We’ll reach out once that plan has been finalized.
For developers who use WU API data for non-commercial purposes, you will have access to a new plan for a personal use, low call volume API. Stay tuned for more details as we build this out.
The WU Forum will continue to be the best place to connect, keep you informed, share your feedback and get your questions answered as we go through this process.
We are grateful for your commitment to Weather Underground and appreciate your understanding and support as we work through this process. These changes will allow us to continually improve our services and develop new features to keep WU a thriving place for you for many years to come.
Thanks for being part of the community! Sincerely, The WU Team
The new icons don’t have labels but the mapping of the icons can be found here:
The corresponding icon map is found here:
https://console.bluemix.net/docs/services/Weather/weather_rest_apis.html#icon_code_images
6 Likes
Just got this today in email
Please respond to this email so that I know you’ve received it. Also posted on the Forum. --Victoria
We’d like to reiterate a few things and let you know of a few small timing changes as we move closer to the previously announced retirement of the Weather Underground API:
Based on the response to the previous announcement as we neared year end, we have extended the retirement date to February 15, 2019 to allow you more transition time.
All Weather Underground API keys will stop working on February 15, 2019 unless otherwise agreed upon with Weather Underground.
All credit card charges for existing Weather Underground API subscriptions will stop on December 26, 2018.
Personal Weather Station (PWS) owners/contributors will continue to be eligible for a free replacement API service selected from our IBM/Weather Company standard offerings that contain:
Current observations from the PWS network
- 5 day daily forecast
- PWS historical data
- PWS lookup by geocode, zip code and location
- Call volume: 1500/day, 30/minute
You can check out our PWS contributor replacement API documentation here.
If you need higher call volumes, you can still sign up for a paid API subscription plan from The Weather Company. Prices begin at $200/month. To have a representative contact you or to request a demo, please click to fill out the contact form.
Finally, we are humbled by the loyalty you’ve shown us during this difficult transition period. Thank you for your continued support of the Weather Underground community.
With gratitude,
The WU API Transition Team
I seriously wonder about a employee who insists on saying…
When there really isn’t…
3 Likes
Just a short announcement for those who were using my SmartApp and DTH based on WU (Weather Underground Web Smartapp: the "poor guy" weather station with event based switches automation), you can have a try to the TWC adapted version I just created in another repo on my GitHub at: https://github.com/philippeportesppo/TheWeatherCompany_SmartThings
Also, the announcement on wunderground.com says:
If you are a Personal Weather Station owner, you will receive more information about our plan to offer free access to the data you provide to Weather Underground. We’ll reach out once that plan has been finalized.
I own two PWS, which upload directly to WU servers. I’ve never had an API key.
Does that make me an owner/contributor that is eligible for a free replacement API service? Because no-one has contacted me. I only even found out about the change through the smartthings forum. Seems like a lot of people (everyone?) were caught by surprise trying to rewrite scripts before year end only to find out that IBM extended the date without telling anyone again.
Nope. You must have a API key.
I’ve just emailed IBM. As i never bothered to go and claim my free key because at the time i didn’t need it. Seems like i now lose out.
personal weather station (PWS) owners will not be impacted. They will have access through the keys they already have to their own data,
That’s form Victoria at IBM. Not sure how she can blanket say ‘PWS Owners will not be impacted’ when clearly they will be, like me.
So i emailed IBM directly with this question:
I am a PWS owner/contributor but never had a WU API key. I never needed it as I accessed my data and forecast through a 3rd party app.
However, that 3rd party isn’t making changes to the IBM API as it’s too expensive. So will i get a free key so that I can continue to access my data?
Their answer was as follows:
This is a good question. Although the access point is not yet ready, you will be able to get a key on the new API when it’s ready. I can add you to the email list so that you hear about it when it’s ready, if you like. Just send me your PWS id.
So good news for the small guy!
2 Likes
Still trying to find a list of the alert phenomena codes. I have searched and can’t find them. Surely someone somewhere knows what they are and has a list???
More great news from The Weather Channel…
@Neil_Oakley thanks for that.
What I meant (but worded poorly) was that the stock ST SmartWeather Station Tile no longer works (no new data is fetched) when using PWS:XXXXX instead of zip for me. The SmartWeather Station Tile 2.0 I have (similar to your screen caps) does still work and probably will until mid Feb when IBM shuts off the current (old) WU API.
The logs in the SmartWeather Station Tile never show new data. I switched from zip to PWS: at 9:50a this morning. You can see weather data coming in before that (when using zip), but updates after that just show “Last Update” with no weather data. I didn’t capture it, but removing “PWS:” allowed fetching of weather data to resume:
Over in the WebCore Wiki there is a list that may be what you are looking for: https://wiki.webcore.co/Weather#Weather_Icons - you’ll probably need to scroll down to see them.
Those are just icons. What I am interested in is the string, probably 2 characters, that indicates the alert. So far I figured out WS is Winter Storm Warning, WW is Winter Weather Advisory, FL is Flood Watch. I was able to get these by finding somewhere in the country that was under an alert and checking that location. But some things like tornadoes are too rare to use that method unless I happen to catch one.
With the old API there was a table that had 3 character alerts. But they no longer apply.
I use these to filter the alerts I want sent to me. I’m not really interested in getting alerts for everything that happens, just a few key ones that I have to be aware of.
This is also in that article 
along with a few other tables that may be of interest.
Thanks for that @Neil_Oakley ! So It can still work 
now I just need to figure out why mine doesn’t.
Thanks again.