Automated importing of National Weather Service (NWS) data into FarmOS.

The purpose of this project is to allow FarmOS to use data from the National Weather Service to allow it to make better decisions as well as to log data from a trusted weather source.

Bit Second noticed that some small farmers and gardeners do not have the financial resources to deploy many sensors for their FarmOS installation. However, by combining the data provide from the local NWS weather station and using additional Drupal modules, FarmOS can be better automated with a lower investment.

• Drupal 7
• FarmOS
• Ubuntu Linux (May run on other Linux versions, but has only be tested with Ubuntu Linux 14.04)
• PHP
• Crontab or other task scheduler capable of running shell scripts

Clone this repository by running the command below

git clone https://github.com/bitsecondal/farmosnws.git

Make a copy of the get_weather_config_ex.sh file. Update the variables located in the configuration script file.

The feedsdir location will need to be updated to the file system location that Drupal is checking to see if data files are available.

The location variable will need to be updated to the location code for the location that you want data for.

• Go to the XML data feeds page on the NWS website.
• Select the state and click Find
• Find the location that is cloest to the area that you want to pull data for.
• In the parenthesis next to the location, you will see a 4-character code. Copy this code.
• Place the 4-character code in the configuration file inside quotes.
• Save the configuration file.

If you have multiple locations that you want to pull data for, you'll need to create a configuration file for each location and set up a scheduled task for each configuration file.

To set up a cron job to run to automatically pull the latest weather data, you use the details and steps below. The National Weather Service updates the data hourly.

Update the paths mentioned to the location of your script and the location of your configuration file respectively. If you want to log the output of the script, also update the log location.

24 * * * * (/path/to/drupal/sites/all/modules/farmosnws/get_weather.sh /path/to/drupal/sites/all/modules/farmosnws/config.sh) >> /var/log/get_weather.log 2>&1

You will need to install software that is capable of downloading files in Windows. Powershell script should be capable of peforming this task. Open the Task Scheduler, located in the Control Panel. Create a new scheduled task. When prompted for the command to run, enter the path to the script in your Drupal directory and the configuration file as an argument in the script.

To get the latest version of this code, pull the latest release from the FarmOS NWS GitHub Page.

Alternatively you can get the latest code by going to the directory that contains the code and running the command below:

git pull origin master

Kenny Robinson, Bit Second Tech (www.bitsecondtech.com)

Bugs and enhancements will be tracked using the Issue tracker on the project repo.

If you need to report a bug, please open a new issue on this repo. Include as much detail as possible so that the issue can be replicated.

Project is available under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

For more information about FarmOS, please visit the FarmOS website.

For more information about the National Weather Service (NWS), please visit the NWS website.