Simple Location version 4.2.0 has been released. In edition to several under the hood improvements, such as standardizing units of measurement for the various weather providers and adding new optional parameters, it introduces the option of a custom and a fallback weather provider. The custom provider allows you to specify custom stations at designated URLs. The stations should return a json object with latitude and longitude as well as any provided weather properties as identified in the system. I’d love it if people implemented this simple json file and allowed others to pull weather data from them.

I built this feature for myself. Using my own weather data when possible has been a desire of mine. Now, my website is set to compare my location to that of the custom stations I’ve designated, in this case two under my control. If I am close, it will use that data. If not, it will go to the fallback provider. The same fallback can be set for regional providers, like the US National Weather service and the Met Office, in case you wander into untracked territory.

The functionality also works for the weather in my sidebar, where you’ll see additional parameters such as the readings from my particulate sensors and any sensors I add in the future.