CHKWX Utility

CHKWX is a 'Check Weather' utility program/script I wrote in Windows Batch scripts and uses PHP and WGet. The utility will send an email to a specified recipient. I use this utility with my cellular provider's Email-to-SMS gateway to send alerts to my cell phone. It is run every 10 minutes via Windows' Scheduled Tasks in XP.

The original 1.0 version used WGet to download a webpage from the National Weather Service. PHP then took over and scanned the downloaded page for keywords (i.e. "Thunderstorm Warning" and "Tornado Warning"). If the keywords were found, it would send a message. This method had a high amount of bandwidth and processing overhead, so 2.0 was born.

Version 2.0 still uses Windows Batch scripts, PHP, and WGet. WGet downloads a RSS feed from the National Weather Service. The Batch scripts will then scan through the file and look for keywords. If a keyword is found, it invokes PHP to send off a message. I made version 2.0 more modular so I could add more counties to scan and alert recipients.

I'm now beginning work on version 3.0. I believe I can further improve the processing overhead as well as make the utility smarter in displaying messages. This new version will still use Windows Batch scripts and PHP. I think I can eliminate the need for the WGet utilty with this version.