What's so cool about the picture above?
Well, so long as you're asking there are actually 4 cool things about this picture namely: the weather, the moon, the time of day, and the color of the Empire State Building. With a little luck they should all be correct. By that I mean, that I should be able to walk out of the front door of my apartment building, and peer over the rooftops of NYC and what I see should be a reasonable aproximation of what you see in the picture above.
For example, if it's just past sunset and the Empire State Building is all lit up in Red, White, and Blue to celebrate Bastille Day, and the moon
is waxing gibbous, and it's just started to snow, then the picture above should reflect that.
Add the New York skyline to your site or blog
It's simple just copy the code below and paste it into your blog or site.As the conditions change in New York City, so will the picture on your blog. A simple mouseover will give the current temperture and the chance of rain during the day, or the reason for the current Empire State Building lighting at night.
Or add it as a Google Gadget
What can it do?
Time of day
First I calculated the sunset, and sunrise times for the next 10 years, and then adjusted for daylight savings time, and then adjusted for it again after the government screwed with it.
First I calculated the sunset, and sunrise times for the next 10 years, and then adjusted for daylight savings time, and then adjusted for it again after the government screwed with it.
From left to right: Just before dawn, early morning, day, sunset, night, and late night.
Weather
As far as the picture's concerned there are only two types of weather, snow and rain, and sometimes a little of each. I tried drawing sleet, I really, really, tried, but it just ended up looking like malformed rain which I suppose is a fairly accurate characterization of sleet, but nevertheless looks pretty dumb in the picture. And as for hail, don't even get me started about friggin hail.
If I've done the math right the phase of the moon in the picture should match what you see. I started work on calculing moonrise, moonset times and elevation from the horizon but there's big problems with that line. The picture represents less than 10 degrees of elevation and the maybe 100 degrees azimuth range across the horizon, so the moon would only be visible in the narrow are the picture covers for a very short period of time if at all each day, and only rarely would it be framed nicely with the Empire State. So, I decided to compromise accuracy for aesthetics.
The colors of the Empire State Building
The kind people at the ESB website are nice enough to keep their lighting schedule online. I'd love to just scrape it and toss it in the database, but unfortunately it's all text fields and scraping ends up being a pretty decent pain. So, keeping that schedule up to date means regular data entry, which could be nightmare, but thankfully my mom volunteered for the position. Everyday she checks the page, updates the colors and even adds a little tidbit regarding the occasion that precipiated the color choice. Think thats cool? Check out her biting commentary on alcohol, sex, film, and literature.
Try it out for yourself
As far as the picture's concerned there are only two types of weather, snow and rain, and sometimes a little of each. I tried drawing sleet, I really, really, tried, but it just ended up looking like malformed rain which I suppose is a fairly accurate characterization of sleet, but nevertheless looks pretty dumb in the picture. And as for hail, don't even get me started about friggin hail.
Although, sadly, I only have two types of precipitation, this is made up for a bit in the fact that they come in three gloriuous intensities.
Light precipitation
A little rain speckling on your glasses, or some flurries that seem to disappear even before they hit the ground.
Medium precipitation
Cause for an umbrella in the case of rain or the celebration of school children in the case of snow.
Heavy precipitation
Holy crap! It's time to start building an ark...um, or diggin a tunnel...
and one extra permutation...
A little rain speckling on your glasses, or some flurries that seem to disappear even before they hit the ground.
Medium precipitation
Cause for an umbrella in the case of rain or the celebration of school children in the case of snow.
Heavy precipitation
Holy crap! It's time to start building an ark...um, or diggin a tunnel...
Lightning
Naturally, you can have thunderstorms as well, or even thundersnow.
The Moon
Naturally, you can have thunderstorms as well, or even thundersnow.
If I've done the math right the phase of the moon in the picture should match what you see. I started work on calculing moonrise, moonset times and elevation from the horizon but there's big problems with that line. The picture represents less than 10 degrees of elevation and the maybe 100 degrees azimuth range across the horizon, so the moon would only be visible in the narrow are the picture covers for a very short period of time if at all each day, and only rarely would it be framed nicely with the Empire State. So, I decided to compromise accuracy for aesthetics.
The kind people at the ESB website are nice enough to keep their lighting schedule online. I'd love to just scrape it and toss it in the database, but unfortunately it's all text fields and scraping ends up being a pretty decent pain. So, keeping that schedule up to date means regular data entry, which could be nightmare, but thankfully my mom volunteered for the position. Everyday she checks the page, updates the colors and even adds a little tidbit regarding the occasion that precipiated the color choice. Think thats cool? Check out her biting commentary on alcohol, sex, film, and literature.
Try it out for yourself