Download daily weather data

2009/2/26 Thomas Levine <thomas.levine at gmail.com>:

I'm writing a program that will tell me whether I should wear a coat,
so I'd like to be able to download daily weather forecasts and daily
reports of recent past weather conditions.

The NOAA has very promising tabular forecasts
(http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Ithaca&state=NY&site=BGM&textField1=42.4422&textField2=-76.5002&e=0&FcstType=digital),
but I can't figure out how to import them.

Someone must have needed to do this before. Suggestions?

You could use my geonames package that uses the GeoNames query
service. There's a sample queries here:

http://geonames.r-forge.r-project.org/

 Easiest is probably to use GNfindNearByWeather:

 > as.data.frame(GNfindNearByWeather(57,-2))
         clouds weatherCondition
1 broken clouds              n/a
                                             observation windDirection ICAO
1 EGPD 262120Z 25003KT 9000 -RA BKN018 06/05 Q1012 NOSIG           250 EGPD
  elevation countryCode       lng temperature dewPoint windSpeed humidity
1        65          GB -2.216667           6        5        03       93
      stationName            datetime  lat hectoPascAltimeter
1 Aberdeen / Dyce 2009-02-26 21:20:00 57.2               1012

 The package is on CRAN.

 There is of course an easier way to decide if you need to wear a
coat, and that is to look out the window :)

Barry