- Mar 31, 2023: Darksky.net and mountain-Forecast.com are no longer supported. Forecasts for locations outside the US are now provided by VisualCrossing.com. To use VisualCrossing for US locations, add “vc” to your forecast request.
- Aug 31, 2019: For the past few days this service wasn’t working for US users because of a change that Garmin made. The problem’s now been fixed.
- Sep 17, 2018: Forecasts from mountain-forecast.com aren’t currently working because of some changes they made to their site. For now a workaround is look up the peak’s coordinates and use darksky.net (forecast.io) instead.
- Dec 17, 2017: Forecasts weren’t getting through to some non-US users, but the problem has now been fixed. Garmin made some changes to their message format that confused my service.
- June 20, 2017: Forecasts weren’t getting through for a couple of days, but the problem’s now been fixed. Garmin made some formatting changes to outgoing InReach email messages that confused my service.
- Dec 3, 2016: Messages weren’t getting through for a couple of days, but the problem’s now been fixed. DeLorme (Garmin) changed the name of one their servers from delorme.com to garmin.com, which confused my service.
- May 5, 2016: US users now have the option to get detailed NWS 6-hourly forecasts instead of 12-hourly summaries. The detailed forecast includes wind speeds and directions, and wave heights for US coastal waters. To request this, use the keyword “nws6”. For example, “wx now nws6” will get you an immediate forecast based on your current location. The forecast will usually cover the next 36-48 hours. You can also get a 72-hour forecast by using the keywords “nws6 all”. In that case you’ll get two or three forecast messages. See the details page for more information.
- Jan 17, 2016: Forecasts weren’t getting through for a couple of days, but the problem has now been fixed. DeLorme made some formatting changes to outgoing InReach email messages that confused my server.
- Aug 13, 2015: Highs and lows were getting mixed up in NWS forecasts. That’s because the NWS made some changes to their forecast data format. It should be working properly now.
- Jul 16, 2015: Fixed an obscure bug affecting users with apostrophes in their names (like “O’Neill”).
- Jul 2, 2015: Fixed a bug affecting Forecast.io. There was a problem with time zone conversions and the forecast data was a few hours out of sync with the reported forecast times.
- Apr 23, 2015: You can now get forecasts for any location world-wide, not just the US, thanks to Forecast.io. Their service combines data from a wide range of sources to provide global coverage.
The US National Weather Service is still the default source for US locations, but you can also use Forecast.io for US locations. Their forecasts include wind speed and direction, which aren’t available from US NWS summaries. - Dec 3, 2014: People have been getting error messages that said “invalid forecast point”. That’s because DeLorme changed the way they encoded GPS coordinates. I’ve made a change on my side and the service is now working again.
- Nov 26, 2014: You can now receive forecasts from mountain-forecast.com as well as the US National Weather Service. Mountain-forecast.com provides forecasts for over 11,000 major peaks world-wide, at up to 5 different elevations.
- Nov 3, 2014: Good news! There’s no longer a cap on the number of users for this service. The only change is that forecast requests now have to be sent to wx2inreach@gmail.com. The old SMS number has been disabled.
- Oct 9, 2014: Unfortunately this service has reached a cap of the number of users. It turns out that DeLorme doesn’t allow more than about 90 InReach devices to send SMSs to any one number. If you've previously used this service you’ll continue to be able to do so, but if you’re a new user your messages won’t get through. Sorry about that. I’ve been in contact with DeLorme and hopefully there'll be a solution.
- Sept 18, 2014: For the past week or two people have been getting error messages that said “no data for forecast point”. That’s because DeLorme changed the way they included GPS coordinates in outgoing messages. I’ve made a change on my side and the service is now working again.