Nice idea. I like the clean interface and it's very responsive. Nice comparison feature as well. I think you need some kind of canonical name resolution though.
For example, searching for 'Moscow' returns nothing -- but it is found as 'Moskva'. Also, nothing is returned for 'Nairobi', but it's there as 'Jomo Kenyatta International' which is their airport. Not exactly obvious.
Do a search for 'South Africa' - the cities it returns are all small cities which are just big enough to have airports. In the cases of places like new york, only the airport is returned.
I'm just guessing here, but possibly this is a database of geographical locations with a population figure attached. The author has probably swapped 'only show cities with greater than X population' with 'only show cities with less than X population'. Airports would have very low population, and that's why there are so many airports. It also doesn't handle non-ASCII characters.
Feature idea: It would be cool if you could sketch the min/max temperatures and rainfall you'd like for your ideal city, and it would tell you what's close to that.
What I really like about the search, is that it accounts for seasons on different hemispheres. E.g. it returns Lisboa and Cadiz as places similar to Sydney. Even though the months with hot weather are different in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
As a side note - clicking the name of a place shows an overlay in the graph. It was not obvious at first; the names are in black.
I must confess I didn't expect the number of curt "the search is inadequate" responses; I posted this because it solved a particular problem I've been curious about for some time, and does a great job of displaying the data in a way that's useful to me. I found the graph display quite handy--using the same scaling on all pages allows me to easily compare different locations in different browser tabs, but the data is displayed simply enough that I'm not overwhelmed with sparklines like I am at other climate sites.
That said, I'd love to see more details about the underlying dataset; given the way the search works it appears to be a SQL database, so I assume it's public data from somewhere?
I put this site together, glad it's useful for you. The graphs are my take on climatographs.
The data is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Climatic Data Center, see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/. The dataset has good coverage of the US, but as people have pointed out, there are gaps in many places, such as the UK. The comparison is based on the monthly average max and min temperatures.
As far as I can tell though, it doesn't seem to account for humidity, pollution or wind patterns. The former is especially important for hot climates (or times of the year) since when it comes to comfort, hot dry >> hot humid.
Yeah it doesn't account for a lot of stuff. I'm in a Mediterranean climate here and it's suggesting a lot of places that are very far from that. If it's supposed to be used for plant growing related purposes it's not going to be very useful.
Trying to figure out the point of this. It's counter intuitive to how most people think. If I want to move, chances are, I want to move somewhere different than the climate I'm already in. Same thing for vacation. I'm still trying to find a reason I want to go somewhere with the same climate as the one I'm currently in.
Perhaps a better idea would be to show places which are completely opposite of the one you're already in.
For me it was the opposite: I choose where I live and I prefer mild climates like southern California in the fall, or Chicago in September. I'd love to see a fully-blossomed climate-view during the year, to city-jump during the most liveable seasons (avoid Chicago Nov-April or July-August for example)
Overall, this is pretty alright, though I'm looking at the climate results for Boston in the summertime right now, and as sweat pours down my face I really really wish that 25°C was the average temperature around here in June-July.
[+] [-] sandbags|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silvestrov|12 years ago|reply
It doesn't have "Copenhagen", only "Koebenhavn" which nobody uses.
[+] [-] buf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lysol|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balloot|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dean|12 years ago|reply
For example, searching for 'Moscow' returns nothing -- but it is found as 'Moskva'. Also, nothing is returned for 'Nairobi', but it's there as 'Jomo Kenyatta International' which is their airport. Not exactly obvious.
Overall very nice work.
[+] [-] meritt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Apocryphon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RyanZAG|12 years ago|reply
I'm just guessing here, but possibly this is a database of geographical locations with a population figure attached. The author has probably swapped 'only show cities with greater than X population' with 'only show cities with less than X population'. Airports would have very low population, and that's why there are so many airports. It also doesn't handle non-ASCII characters.
It's a guess, anyway.
[+] [-] beachstartup|12 years ago|reply
in the US the NWS / NOAA operates weather stations at airports, wouldn't be surprised if other countries have similar programs.
my hometown has a much larger population than the next one over, but the next one over is listed because there's an airport there.
[+] [-] graue|12 years ago|reply
Feature idea: It would be cool if you could sketch the min/max temperatures and rainfall you'd like for your ideal city, and it would tell you what's close to that.
[+] [-] peterjs|12 years ago|reply
As a side note - clicking the name of a place shows an overlay in the graph. It was not obvious at first; the names are in black.
[+] [-] ericedge|12 years ago|reply
That said, I'd love to see more details about the underlying dataset; given the way the search works it appears to be a SQL database, so I assume it's public data from somewhere?
[+] [-] mmcb|12 years ago|reply
The data is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Climatic Data Center, see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/. The dataset has good coverage of the US, but as people have pointed out, there are gaps in many places, such as the UK. The comparison is based on the monthly average max and min temperatures.
[+] [-] DoubleCluster|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gvkv|12 years ago|reply
As far as I can tell though, it doesn't seem to account for humidity, pollution or wind patterns. The former is especially important for hot climates (or times of the year) since when it comes to comfort, hot dry >> hot humid.
[+] [-] HNJohnC|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoubleCluster|12 years ago|reply
* No results found.
Great product!
[+] [-] frozenport|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lzm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozenport|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] at-fates-hands|12 years ago|reply
Perhaps a better idea would be to show places which are completely opposite of the one you're already in.
[+] [-] marquis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Filligree|12 years ago|reply
At least tell me "City not found".
[+] [-] _delirium|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the1213|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Siecje|12 years ago|reply
What about a link to see cities that are the most opposite?
[+] [-] ketralnis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] replax|12 years ago|reply
Bug: as soon as you enter mon ASCI Charaters in the search, it will return a blank page, tried: münchen (munich), 東京 (Tokyo).
[+] [-] c54|12 years ago|reply
And a 'minimum population' control.