Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks: Part 5 - Weather & Solunar Forecast

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Neumie
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Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks: Part 5 - Weather & Solunar Forecast

Post by Neumie »

This is the fifth installment of the Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks. In this post I'll show how to incorporate weather forecasts and solunar tables.

If you missed the other posts here are the links:
Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks: Part 1 - The Basics
Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks: Part 2 - Coastal Data
Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks: Part 3 - Freshwater Data
Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks: Part 4 - Creating a Fishing Journal

Creating a Weather Forecast Layer

Google Earth has a weather layer buried within its "Layers" table on the bottom left. IT used to be decent, but several years ago Google Earth quit supporting that feature. Now it's only good for current cloud coverage; assuming the layer will load. Honestly, I never used the feature much, but in my quest to make Google Earth a one stop shop for planning fishing trips I started looking for ways to add a weather forecast layer.

For this example I going to use Rockport. I started by navigating to weather.gov's Rockport page.

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I scrolled down and little bit and clicked on the link for "Printable Forecast", which I highlighted in green, towards the left of the screen.

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This will open a new page which is, surprisingly, a printer friendly version of their weather forecast. For now, keep this tab open on your browser as you'll need to copy the web address later on.

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Launch Google Earth Pro. Under "Places" right click on "My Places" and add a folder. In this case I named mine Weather Forecasts. I already have a folder created, so you can see the six locations I like to fish the most.

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Next zoom into a location you fish often, such as Rockport. Right click on the new folder you just created ("Weather Forecast") and add a placemark.

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You can drag the thumbtack to a desired location if you choose to. Rename the placemark to correspond to its location. If you want to change the icon from a thumbtack to say a sun, click on the little thumbtack within the balloon; click OK.

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Next you'll want to copy and paste this code into the description on your newly created placemark.
<iframe width="820" height="610" frameborder="0" scrolling="yes" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="Enter Link Between These Quotation Marks"></iframe>
</div>
Navigate back to your web browser and copy the web address from the "printer friendly" page you should have left open; highlighted in green.

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Navigate back to Google Earth and within the code I posted earlier paste the link between the quotation marks which say "Enter Link Between These Quotation Marks". It's very important to paste the link between the quotations marks, highlighted here in green. Click "OK"

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If you are successful when you click on the thumbtack, or sun in my case, it''l pull up the 7 day forecast for the area. This will automatically update as weather.gov updates their forecasts. Lather, rinse, and repeat for your favorite fishing grounds.

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Adding Solunar and Tide Tables

In one of my previous posts crusher asked about adding solunar tables to Google Earth. At the time I didn't know how to add solunar tables are where to find a downloadable file. After Googling websites I found https://www.tidessolunar.com/us/texas. Their user interface is top notch and information seems to go toe to toe with other tide and solunar websites. I reached out to them and within the few hours they had written a kml file of their solunar and tide charts for me test. Absolutely great customer service.

So, by clicking this link https://www.tidessolunar.com/kml/us/texas.kml it will automatically download their kml file of solunar and tide charts for numerous locations along the Texas coast.

I recommend moving the file from your download folder to your dedicated GE folder. Open Google Earth, Click File-Open, and import the file to GE. In the "Temporary Folder" on the left you'll see a file called "Texas Tides and Solunar Tables". Click on and hold and drag to "My Places". Click the small black triangle to the left of "Texas Tides and Solunar Tables" to drop down a list of all the stations within the file.

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Zooming into Rockport, click on the thumbtack and the solunar and Tide charts will pop up in a balloon.

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OK, that should do it for this one. As always, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.
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kickingback
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Re: Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks: Part 5 - Weather & Solunar Forecast

Post by kickingback »

Nice addition for a one stop shopping for planning where to fish! Thanks Neumie! Great stuff for everyone to use! I know I copied your instructions as I never had it. Nice for the solunar tables as you can click on more detailed information in the pop up window when you click on the placemark. Perfect!
I always went to the weather channel only when I knew I was going somewhere and decided to check it. This will be a one stop for all information in one program. Excellent! :clap:
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Neumie
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Re: Google Earth Pro Tips & Tricks: Part 5 - Weather & Solunar Forecast

Post by Neumie »

kickingback wrote:Nice for the solunar tables as you can click on more detailed information in the pop up window when you click on the placemark.
When I click on the "More Detailed Information" on the solunar table it doesn't quite load correctly within Google Earth, for me at least. So I click on the "Open in Google Chrome" in the upper right hand corner (highlighted green) to open in my default web browser. They really do have a nice UI.

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