duanem

So Flowx is back on Google Play now. There was no notification that the changes were accepted or the appeal was accepted of that the app was live again. Nothing.

During the 1-2 days the app was removed from the Google Play store, Flowx missed out on new subscriptions and it seems the recurring subscriptions were cancelled.

I find it crazy Google can do this to people with no recourse.

This is why we need multiple app stores on each platform.

As a solo developer, it has been hard to support multiple app stores but now I will make an effort, encourage other developers to list on other stores and encourage users to install from the smaller stores.

I know it's hopeful, but I hope get get a better app ecosystem.

I remember when Apple and Google worked hard to woo developers and users, now they own the market, they can act without concern.

Thanks for the reply.

The store blurb lists the data models available in the app, for example, NOAA HRRR and DWD D2, which only cover certain regions in the world. This is important for the user to know before installing the app.

Also, all other weather apps, including Windy and Ventusky, lists the weather models that are available in their app.

This violation notice just doesn't make sense, this is why I wonder if it was an AI process that removed it.

Hi HN,

I'm the developer of Flowx[0], an Android and iOS weather app, and I've just added the solar eclipse path and shadow which can be superimposed over the weather forecast - in particular the low, mid and high cloud forecasts.

I've also created an OpenZone which make all weather data (including HRRR) freely available over North America for the period leading up to the eclipse day.

This is available in the latest Apple App Store release. Unfortunately, I could not get this out to production Android in time but have an alpha test version. Contact me if you are interested in the alpha test version.

Cheers, Duane.

[0] https://flowx.io

Apple did not build the ecosystem alone. The ecosystem is made up of the platform, the developers and the users. Lose one of these and you don't have an ecosystem. If all the developers leave, users will leave. If all users leave, developers will leave.

I would argue developers put in just as much, if not more effort.

Apple did not build the ecosystem alone, nor does it own the ecosystem. It is merely acting as a uncool gatekeeper.

I read RNZ news and came across this article. I don't know this couple and I don't know if they did anything wrong, but what really bugs me is that major tech companies can do this without due process or penalties when they negligently get it wrong.

In New Zealand and many places around the world, governments cannot shut a business down without following due process. It seems tech companies make their own rules. How can tech giants do so in a way that affects people's livelihoods in a major way? For Facebook/Meta is it's a drop in the ocean - for this couple, it is their livelihood.

I changed DEBUG = False and I get an "Internal Server Error" - you can check it now while I have a quick go at finding the cause.

I want to try static page generators (Hugo) instead since they are easier to maintain. So it's a prioritization question - do I spend time fixing this bug or spend the time on migrating.

I've actually already looked into the DEBUG=True issue just now. Setting it to false causes an "Internal Server Issue".

So do I spend hours looking for a fix, look into replacing it with a static pages site (I'm thinking Hugo) or just go back to porting Flowx to Apple :-)

Flowx dev here. I'm not sure if the 404 page or the Debug = True is the concern?? but there are two privacy pages in the help section: https://flowx.io/help/privacy/ https://flowx.io/help/privacy-policy/

I'm not a fan of website - they have become complex. I'm currently looking into static pages as a replacement.

That said, Flowx has many moving parts: app development, data servers, data processing, support, forum, website, and others. My main focus is app development and probably the least focus is the website.

BTW, I'm in the process of porting Flowx to Apple. It's not as complete as the Android version but it's in beta testing if you'd like to join. Just message me and I can send an invite.

Thanks for the support guys. I miss the WeatherBomb name too.

I'm in the process of porting Flowx, an Android weather app, to iOS. It is currently released for beta testing. I've added most global and European data and am planning to add NOAA's NAM and HRRR data in the next week or two. I still have to add waves, radar and wind streamlines.

If you're interested in testing, email me or contact me via the flowx forum.

You have to be careful you aren't comparing apples to oranges. You might be looking at the Meteoblue MOS (statistically corrected) predictions which might be based on their regional weather simulation. This regional simulation might be nested in a larger global model, probably from ECMWF. If you compare this ECMWF model to GFS, then you are comparing apples with apples.

I find global models like GFS are great for understanding the large scale weather systems. The regional high-resolution models, which are usually nested in a global model, give better definition of local weather phenomena like wind shadows or cooler temperatures in valleys.

Dues to averaging, weather simulations usually have a bias error in temperature predictions. These errors are corrected using statistics (look up Model-Output-Statistics) but is hyper-local, i.e., you loose the big picture. This is probably what you're looking at with Meteoblue.

I've been working with weather models for 10 years and I often get asked "How accurate is X?" or "Which model is more accurate?" Many people think "accuracy" is a single number or a single thing - it is more complex than this and depends on your needs.

This chapter on Numerical Weather Predictions [0] is great, especially the section on "Forecast Quality and Verification" (p777). The eye-opener for me was "Binary/Categorical Event". An example of a binary event is rain, one model could predict rain correctly but a second model might not predict the rain at all. This doesn't mean the second model was completely wrong, it still predicted the rain but it predicted the rain passing further to the south.

[0] https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/books/Practical_Meteorology/mse3/Ch2...

I've also noticed some model are better than other at predicting one phenomena while other models might be better in certain regions. For example, many people report that Canada's GDPS is better at higher latitudes whereas NOAA's GFS is better at equatorial regions.

One final note, just because someone is solving an WRF model without verifying the results, doesn't mean it's wrong. Many numerical techniques and physical models within WRF have been validated analytical and experimental models. But it is also true that someone can naively setup a WRF model that gives bad results.

I use a 900m WRF model that predicts the wind shadow around an island and we use it to find the best beach for a picnic - and it works. But this same model predicts the general pattern of rain but it doesn't get the start and stop time of rain correct.

People get fixated on accuracy as a single thing and use it as a single basis for argument but to take a quote from the chapter [0] above "One of the least useful measures of quality is forecast accuracy" (ref. p777, Forecast Quality and Verification, third paragraph).

I have a weather app on Android and, as a New Zealander, wanted to include NZ data. MetService made it difficult and costly. When I asked how much for radar data, they essentially asked how much the app earned. I wrote to MP Megan Woods about this but never got a reply. Philip Duncan of WeatherWatch in NZ has fought this in the past. There is also a PriceWaterhouseCooper report on MetService:

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/5b3b826f79/weather-permittin...

My weather app has five weather models that cover NZ include a high resolution model from Expedition Marine, an NZ based meteorologist. I hope to bring model farming related weather data in the future.

I have a product that does of what you ask, e.g., no ads, no tracking, no "Dear valued customer".

Unfortunately: - competitors use revenue from ads, tracking, selling data to their advantage and undercut your value based on price.

- and free users love free stuff. I had a user ask me to include ads in exchange for paid features.

- and yet people still distrust you. Once I proudly posted a new feature to Show HK and the first response was "How does this post not qualify as 'spam'?". Some people automatically think you're a bad guy since you sell something.

- without advertising, how do you get the word out?

I rely on word-of-mouth, since it carries much trust, and news articles. This means it's a slow game.

It is very hard to find mutual respect (both ways) between user and maker. Most relationships start with distrust or "what is in it for me".

No, there are no notification. I plan to add a notification editor one day where you can configure any notification you want.

That said, the to-do list is super long so it might be a while before this feature is done. I depends on demand.

That said, Rainviewer is working on predicting rain from radar images for up to 2 hours ahead. Check them out and ask when this feature might appear. They might have beta testing and your situation sounds like a good test case.

I felt a little slighted (in a cheeky way) by the "zero good weather apps for Android" comment. Started writing then decided against it. Then I got this email in my inbox from a user :-)

Dark Sky is shuttering their Android app after being acquired by Apple. People are saying things like "Now I will have zero good weather apps for Android. "

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22740331

Flowx is better than Dark Sky!

Rainviewer is working on a similar output as Dark Sky where they are a predicting the radar images forward up to 2 hours.

I don't think this feature is released yet but with this situation and support, they might work on it faster.

I process weather simulation data from around the world (22 data sources). My servers process around 400-500 GB of data a day and I store about 120 GB which gives me about 5 days of historic simulation data and up to 16 days forecast data.

Storage and processing is relatively easy since it's just a matter of throwing resources at it. However, it'll be damn expensive to store months or years of historic simulation data.

The difficult part is writing and maintaining the processing scripts. The different weather services store data in different formats, have different ways to download the data and sometimes change data structures or fall over.

Edit: removed a spurious sentence.

I develop Flowx, an Android weather app, and I agree, it is difficult to pull data from NOAA and other weather services around the world.

Depending on your needs, I may have data you can use. I only process forecast weather simulation data - not weather stations. I'm a solo dev so I can't offer high levels of service, etc... but feel free to contact me.

Agreed. If you have a bad upbringing and treat people poorly, when you enter a new environment, e.g., a workplace, the new environment would quickly teach the new person the proper way to act.

Likewise, on the internet, we need to encourage people to behave nicely and discourage bad behaviour. And we do, this is what this post is about. I guess we need more of it.

Two acronyms I love are "RTFM" and "TL;DR" - they are short, quick and carry a lot of meaning. I would feel stink if I asked a question and got "RTFM" as a reply, it would highlight my laziness.

I've wondered if an acronym to say "You aren't being nice" or something to that effect would help.

I'm not sure you were around for the great Gnome vs KDE wars of the 2000's. It was pretty toxic and "win-at-all-costs" back then :-)

When I released my app 8-years ago, I thought support would be my most hated part of releasing a product. To my surprise, it was one of the most rewarding parts, I met some great people via email, some I will visit one day.

But support has its ugly "toxic" side as well. This is particularly prevalent in 1-star reviews for trivial issues. All the reviewer sees is a box to vent their thoughts without considering that there is a real person on the other side. But I'm a real person who cares and some comments do stir bad emotions. This has brought some of my lowest and darkest days of app development.

Sometimes I will make contact with the reviewer and as soon as they get to know me as a real person, they are friendlier and more respectful.

The faceless nature of the internet causes people to treat others poorly. In the real world where we meet people in face-to-face, our initial and natural position is to treat each other with respect.

So here are a few ideas: 1. imagine a person, someones face, not a textbox, website or company - add a persona to him or her. 2. Ask this simple question "Would I treat or talk to someone (my friend) like this in real-life?" 3. Would you be proud of the way you're conversing if people you admire were watching, e.g., respected colleagues, friends, parents.

This will change the way you write.

The app space in general might be crowded but the weather market for the Flowx type of app is not so crowded. Windy (and Ventusky) is our closest competitor. Windy initially targeted extreme sports but now seems to target the larger extreme weather (hurricanes) notification and warning market, i.e., high-volume. I believe there is enough room for Flowx alongside Windy, etc... by targeting a niche market that require more in-depth and technical weather data, e.g. farmers.

Technically, Windy is based on the code from https://earth.nullschool.net which limits them to that code-base. Flowx is written from scratch and is different by design. This means I can do different things, e.g., the smooth swiping. So I think I can compete with different techniques.

As an engineer, I am guilty of focusing on features and the product over marketing. So my marketing is lacking. Though, I'm looking into writing about my experiences with the weather app.

In summary, I think there is enough room in the advanced weather data market and can compete through niche markets and technical features.

Just an added note. I started Flowx as a side-project in 2012. In 2016, we moved to Rarotonga and we decided then to try to grow it into a business. It was making ~$100/month at that stage. Since then, it has grown it to $2500/month through added pro features and a better subscription prices.

I develop Flowx [https://www.flowx.io], an Android weather app. It makes around $2,500 USD/month with about $500/month in costs excluding my time. It covers about 60% of my total costs including my time which is 40+ hours a week. I cover my remaining costs through contract work. This might not seem like a success but the business allowed us to move to the Rarotonga, Cook Islands from Auckland, New Zealand. Lifestyle-wise and building-a-business-wise, I think it's a success.

The initial conditions of the weather simulation, which is based on measured data and previous simulation results, are perturbed to within a reasonable range to represent the error in the measurements. Because of the equations being solved and numerical methods being used, these small changes can cause large change on long term predictions.

The tracks come from one original simulation. If you look at the start of the tracks closely, you'll see the eye of the hurricanes diverge in a regular grid, so I'm guessing they are perturbing the direction and speed of the bulk movement of mass - I would have to research more.

So the initial conditions and early stages of the simulations are correlated, but each simulation is solved independently. The question is how long into the future can you consider each track less-correlated.

Given the met organizations release probability envelopes based on these track means it's a reasonable approach.

What I really want to do is weight the predicted wind speed with the probability map. I don't know if this will work. But you can imagine if a hurricane has a 75% change of going well into the continent it would weaken and cause less damage, but if the other 25% of the tracks go over sea and hit an island, it'll likely strengthen and cause more damage.

In any case, all the above will be interesting.

Thanks. I was going through my memory of previous "Show HN" posts I've read and many are products.

If it's any consolation, we don't have a marketing department or budget :-)

I did read the guidelines before posting and I honestly don't know how to quantify what is spam.

I don't believe it's spam since there are new two features, OpenZones and hurricane tracks, that are interesting and useful to people, especially with the hurricane. I'm quite proud of these developments. The OpenZones meet public good while still having a way to cover costs. The hurricane tracks visualization is new and unique and addresses the problem highlighted in the "Misinterpreting hurricane forecasts"[0]. I believe these are appropriate for "Show HN".

I have many other ideas to develop for Flowx, it would be sad if they could not be shown here because it's in a product.

BTW, the guidelines say this about spam: "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did."

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20833030

I believe the hurricane tracks is a solution to the problem outlined in the HN post 3 days ago on "Misinterpreting hurricane forecasts"[0].

The hurricane tracks are a new addition to Flowx but I believe it can be improved a lot. For example, you can color the dots by the hurricane category or wind speed. Better still, draw a heat map around each dot would generate a probability map for the hurricane.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20833030