TO THE DEVELOPER, FWIW: I'm also in California and it thinks I'm in the Philippines in a town with the same name as one a few miles from here. I assume you use IP to find town, country; throw away country; look up town in a list with country names in alphabetical order (Philippines < United States)

Note that even if you get the country right it won't be enough, because there is a "Springfield" in each of the 50 states. You'll have to get keep all of the location info you get from the IP lookup, not throw part of it away and attempt to recover it.

> Note that even if you get the country right it won't be enough, because there is a "Springfield" in each of the 50 states.

D'oh!

Yes, and here's another d'oh: I learned long ago, years before The Simpson's show existed, that there was a Springfield in every state. The show's creators may have heard the same urban legend back in those days before we had that oracle called Google. But, for the first time in all these years, I just went off to check out this claim for myself, and I'm wrong. There is no Springfield, Utah, or Alaska, or North Carolina, for example, and I find no evidence there ever was one in Utah (I didn't check the others), so it's not something that WAS true when I was a kid but no longer is. I don't think it was ever true.

D'oh! (All these years.... How many other things do I "know" that aren't true...?)

As a workaround, you can use your zip code instead. E.g. http://wttr.in/90401

Doesn’t work with German ZIP codes: http://wttr.in/24107 or ISO ZIP codes: http://wttr.in/D-24107

Why would it work with German zip codes? Zip codes are not universal...

Because there are people in Germany who want to get the weather?

There are countries which don't have zip codes.

Turns out that when I'm in the US, I can't use my credit card to order takeaway food online, because they universally require zip code validation, and neither the postcode for my Swiss credit card (8047) or my UK credit card (IV548JS) (both codes modified to protect the guilty) pass the very simple minded zip code validation.

...and Ireland only had them at all since 2015.

I think his point is that there would be collisions with every other country so it could only concivably work with one countries zip codes.

Well, the country prefix solves the collision problem, after which it's just a data problem.

Thank you.

Why would it work with USA zip codes? Zip codes are not universal...

Because it's programmed for US zip codes.

So, you can't just enter any zip code in there. There would be clashes since zip codes aren't unique across countries.

Just to be a pedant, that's not what was stated: "As a workaround, you can use your zip code instead.".

Your assumption is that zip code == "U.S zip code" which is a fair assumption if the site only supports the U.S. Other comments on the thread shows the site does support locations outside of the U.S. It is therefore also a fair assumption that it _might_ support similar functionality outside the U.S., kuschku simply tested said assumption and stated that it was incorrect so that other readers were aware.

For that use case there's the ISO standard for ZIP codes, as used in paper mail:

Short Country prefix (same as on international car ID plates), then a minus, then the ZIP code.

So, for Germany, D-24107 would be one such code.

Yet, it doesn't handle that either.

you can also use basic text search, which works internationally: http://wttr.in/santa%20rosa,%20ca

I can confirm that it does correctly give me Minneapolis, MN, not Minneapolis, KS, which is what the MacOS Dashboard weather widget would display around 10.5 or so if you entered "Minneapolis".

It accepts airport codes, so you can use the one for Sonoma County Airport (assuming it's close by enough).

http://wttr.in/sts

I'm definitely not in Santa Clara, Cuba...

> Get city by IP address

> Search weather for city

I get the same thing: shows a city in a different country with the same name.