This Site Takes Me Back to the Glory Days of Weather Forecasts on Local on the 8s
The Weather Channel looked like a regular TV channel, for the most part — until it added a local forecast. Then it became a pixelated dump of weather data, played over a funky piano soundtrack. There was nothing like it on the internet — until now.
WeatherStar 4000 is a free website that recreates the look and feel of a vintage Weather Channel local weather forecast, complete with accurate visuals and optional CRT scanlines. Most importantly, it offers a time-accurate low-fi funk soundtrack that’s perfect for relaxing or studying.
To get started, simply visit the site and select which features you want and don’t want using the checkbox. Then, when you’re ready, click the fullscreen button in the bottom right corner. Make sure you also turn off the music for the full effect. My editor told me after doing this that it would live permanently on his second monitor. I’m glad for him.
The site was created by programmer Matt Walsh , who made it as a variation on an older project that aimed to accurately recreate the vintage format. Walsh’s site offers new features, including a scrolling hourly forecast and widescreen support.
I like this site. It won’t replace my weather app, of course, but it’s a great tribute to the technology that made cable TV a necessity for many. Getting an accurate local forecast in the ’90s was difficult. The newspaper had one, but it was printed the night before and was probably out of date. You could also try to catch a local TV station, but they usually only air a few times a day.
That’s where the Weather Channel came in. It combined national programming with computer-generated local forecasts broadcast every 10 minutes on minutes ending in the number 8 (the segment was called Local On The 8s ). This meant you could turn on the TV any time you saw an eight at the end of your watch to see an extremely up-to-date local forecast.
How did it work? It would have been prohibitively expensive for The Weather Channel to create hundreds of different broadcasts, each with different local forecasts, and then deliver those broadcasts individually to cable providers. Instead, the network gave cable providers a computer — WeatherStar — that took the forecast information as text and used it to create the pixelated video forecasts we all remember. It was a sophisticated, automated way to deliver something we now take for granted: up-to-date local weather information.
The WeatherStar 4000+, as you may have noticed, is named after this device – a fitting tribute. I recommend you turn it on, put on some music, and just vibrate for a while. God knows there are less useful things on the web these days.