Get Rain Notifications Using IFTTT
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis article was written on September 05, 2012 by CyberNet.
It’s not a lot of fun when you’re caught outside in a storm without an umbrella, but the awesome If This Then That (IFTTT) service can be used as an advanced warning system for rain and thunderstorms. For those of you not familiar with IFTTT it’s basically a website that is able to tie multiple online services together. For example, you can have any image you’re tagged in on Facebook automatically saved to your Dropbox account. Or you can save any starred Google Reader items to Evernote. It’s a free and unbelievably awesome service that I have come to rely on.
IFTTT is also capable of sending you a notification via email or SMS based on the weather conditions. You can have it send out the weather conditions every morning if that’s what you want, or you can just have it give you alerts when it is about to rain. IFTTT checks the weather condition every 15-minutes, and if it finds that it is raining in your area it can send an email or SMS message so that you’re aware of the impending downpour. Alternatively you can have it push out a notification to you if tomorrow’s forecast calls for rain.
So how do you set these up? If you’re already familiar with IFTTT I’m sure you’ll be able to create “recipes” for these actions in just a few seconds. The good news is that IFTTT also lets users share recipes that have been created so that you don’t have to go through the hassle. Here are some pre-made recipes for getting notifications based on whether it is currently raining or whether it is supposed to rain tomorrow:
- Alert if it is currently raining
- Alert if it is supposed to rain tomorrow
Personally I set up alerts for both situations. I find that the notification about whether it is currently raining gives you about a 10-15 minute heads up which in some situations just isn’t enough. That’s where the daily notification comes in… each night IFTTT will send me an alert if it thinks it is supposed to rain tomorrow based on the forecast. That way I know whether I should grab an umbrella before I walk out the door in the morning.
Want even more weather alerts? IFTTT can handle any of the following conditions:
- Current temperature drops below…
This Trigger monitors your local temperature and fires whenever the temperature drops below the value you provide. - Current temperature rises above…
This Trigger monitors your local temperature and fires whenever the temperature rises above the value you provide. - Current condition changes to…
This Trigger monitors changes in the current weather condition. When one of those conditions is met the Trigger fires. Currently only these simple conditions are supported: Rain, Snow, Cloudy, Clear. - Tomorrow’s low drops below…
This Trigger fires every time tomorrow’s forecasted low temperature drops below a value you provide. - Tomorrow’s high rises above…
This Trigger fires every time tomorrow’s forecasted high temperature rises above a value you provide. - Tomorrow’s forecast calls for…
This Trigger monitors changes in tomorrow’s forecasted weather condition. - Sunrise…
This Trigger fires within 15 minutes of the sunrise in your location. - Sunset…
This Trigger fires within 15 minutes of the sunset in your location. - Wind speed rises above…
This Trigger fires every time the wind speed rises above a value you specify in your location. - Current pollen count rises above…
This Trigger monitors your local pollen levels and fires every time the pollen count rises above the value you provide (1-12).
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