The Weather Company sample

The Weather Company sample includes metadata corresponding to The Weather Company analytic tooling services. This data module can be joined to other data modules to create relationships between your application tables and data from The Weather Company.

Importing The Weather Company sample

The Weather Company sample demonstrates how to use The Weather Company data.

Before you begin

You must have a Weather Company API key. For more information, see Weather Data Packages (https://business.weather.com/products/weather-data-packages). If you want historical weather data, then you must have the History on Demand Data Package. If you want forecast data, then you must have the Enhanced Forecast Weather Data Package.

Procedure

  1. Go to https://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/data/sw-library/cognos/mobile/C11/TWC/ and download the file called The_Weather_Company.zip to the cognos_analytics_server_install_location\deployment folder.
  2. Go to Manage > Administration console and open IBM Cognos Administration.
  3. On the Configuration tab, click Content Administration.
  4. On the toolbar, click the New Import icon New import icon.
  5. Select The_Weather_Company.zip in the first step of the New Import wizard and complete the remaining steps of the wizard using the defaults.
  6. Update the IBM Weather Company data source connection signon with your Weather Company API key as the password.
    For information about how to update the signon, see Creating a data server connection.

Results

The sample appears in the Team content > The Weather Company, an IBM business > The Weather Company folder. It contains the following objects:
Boston 311 calls data module
Created from the Boston_311_calls.xlsx uploaded file. It is one of the sources in Boston 311 plus weather data module.
Boston 311 plus weather data module
Demonstrates how to combine business data (Boston 311 calls data module) and weather data (The Weather Company data module) into a single data module using filter joins.
Boston_311_calls.xlsx
Demonstrates how to add date and postalKey fields to support weather analytics. The file contains 311 calls to the city of Boston, MA. Like many other cities, Boston logs hundreds of thousands of requests each year for 311 services such as snow plowing, street cleaning, and pot hole repair. Source: City of Boston.
Historical weather report
Demonstrates weather analytics in the context of a report.
The Weather Company data module
Includes metadata corresponding to The Weather Company analytic tooling services. This data module must be joined to other data modules to create relationships between application tables and data from The Weather Company as demonstrated in Boston 311 plus weather data module.
The Weather Company data module contains the following tables:
Forecast on demand
The forecast on demand (FDAT) table returns information for a 14-day forecast, which is computed on demand by The Weather Company.
Historical weather data
The historical weather data (HDAT) table returns historical weather data, starting from June 2015. Summarized by day for a postal code.
A request to HDAT returns data for a date range. If you omit the date range, all data is returned.
Locations
Countries and postal codes supported by The Weather Company. This table returns examples of the countries and postal code values that are supported. Do not use this table in other joins. It is intended to be used only to help verify whether the values in the source columns or calculated columns are postal codes and countries that are recognized by The Weather Company.
Product entitlement
The products provided by The Weather Company that the API key is entitled to access.

To retrieve HDAT or FDAT data, The Weather Company requires requests to specify a postalKey field. The postalKey can be provided using relationships or embedded filters. The postalKey field is of the form postal_code:country_code, where postal_code is a postal code (also known as ZIP code or similar name) and country_code is a two-digit country code. You can find a list of the supported postal codes and country codes in the Locations table in the The Weather Company data module.

If you are retrieving HDAT data, then you can also specify a date range. You must join on a column of DATE data type. If the source value has the TIMESTAMP data type, then convert it to the DATE data type.

You create the join by specifying one of the following filters in your data module or Framework Manager model:
Embedded filter
Filter on the postalKey column by specifying either one value or a list of values. For information about embedded filters, see Creating embedded filters.
Filter join or relationship
To create a relationship in data modeling in IBM® Cognos® Analytics, see Creating a relationship from scratch. Make sure that the source table is on the left side of the relationship (Table 1) and that The Weather Company table is on the right side of the relationship (Table 2). Also make sure that you select Unique or range of values for the Optimization option.
To create a filter join in Framework Manager, see Optimizing joins by applying filters.
By default, an equals comparison is done. When a filter join is computed, a list of dynamically calculated values is used in the query to access The Weather Company data. If the source table has two or more postalKeys, an in comparison is done. If the source column for a date is specified, a between comparison is done. The low value is the minimum date in the table and the high value is the maximum date in the table.
Note: To see an example of how to join a data asset to The Weather Company data module, look at the Boston 311 plus weather data module.
The FDAT and HDAT tables contain the following columns:
  • The postalKey that describes the location associated to the weather data
  • The day for which the weather was observed or forecast
  • A folder corresponding to each of the products offered by the The Weather Company. The following list describes the available products. The products that you have access to depend on your organization's product entitlement.
Dew point

The temperature which air must be cooled at constant pressure to reach saturation. The dew point is also an indirect measure of the humidity of the air. The dew point never exceeds the temperature. When the dew point and temperature are equal, clouds or fog usually form. The closer the values of temperature and dew point, the higher the relative humidity. The dew point unit of measure is Kelvin (K).

Feels like
An apparent temperature. It represents what the air temperature feels like on exposed human skin due to the combined effect of the wind chill or heat index. The unit of measure is Kelvin (K).
Gust
The wind gust speed. The gust unit of measure is meters/second (m/s).
Mean sea level pressure
The mean sea level pressure (MSLP) unit of measure is Pascal (Pa).
Precipitation
The hourly rate of observed liquid precipitation in millimeters per hour (mm/h).
Relative humidity
The relative humidity of the air, which is the ratio of the amount of water vapor in the air to the amount of vapor required to bring the air to saturation at a constant temperature. The relative humidity unit of measure is percentage (%).
Snow amount
The hourly rate of observed snowfall in meters per hour (m/h).
Temperature
The temperature of the air, measured by a thermometer 1.5 meters (4.5 feet) above the ground that is shaded from the other elements. The temperature unit of measure is Kelvin (K).
UV index
The UV index is an enumerated integer. The following table shows the values for ultraviolet index.
Range Description
0 - 2 low
3 - 5 moderate
6 - 7 high
8 - 10 very high
11 - 16 extreme
Visibility
The horizontal visibility at the observation point. Visibility can be reported as fractional values, particularly when visibility is less than 2 miles. Visibility greater than 10 statute miles (16.1 kilometers), which is considered unlimited is reported as 999. It is possible to have visibility values that equal zero. Dense fogs and heavy snows can produce values near zero. Fog, smoke, heavy rain, and other weather phenomena can reduce visibility to near zero miles or kilometers. The visibility unit of measure is meters (m).
Wind speed
The wind information reported in the hourly current conditions corresponds to a 10-minute average called the sustained wind speed. Sudden or brief variations in the wind speed are known as wind gusts and are reported in a separate data field (gust). The wind speed unit of measure is meters/second (m/s).
Each product (for example, snow amount) is returned as an aggregate value such as sum if applicable, minimum, maximum, and average, based on the following definitions:
Day
Measurements from 00:00 hours to 24:00 hours.
Daytime
Measurements from 07:00 hours up to 19:00 hours.
Nighttime
Measurements from 09:00 hours up to 07:00 hours of the next day.
Morning
Measurements from 07:00 hours up to 13:00 hours.
Afternoon
Measurements from 13:00 hours up to 19:00 hours.
Evening
Measurements from 19:00 hours up to 01:00 hours of the next day.
Overnight
Measurements from 01:00 hours up to 07:00 hours in the following day.