=================================================
 New Version Information for the Weather Utility
=================================================

:Copyright: (c) 2006-2012 Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org>. Permission
            to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software is
            granted under terms provided in the LICENSE file distributed
            with this software.

.. contents::

2.0 Release
-----------
The 2.0 release involves a major rewrite of the underlying code and
addition of large volumes of previously-unneeded location correlation
data. In the Spring of 2011 the USA NOAA/NWS made significant changes to
the way they organized and published forecast data such that it could
no longer be supported by design assumptions inherent within this
utility. Attempts were made to preserve backward compatability with 1.x
command-line usage and configuration file formats where possible, but
some regressions are unfortunately unavoidable. The aurl, city, flines,
furl, id, murl, st and zones options have been removed. Minimal logic
was retained to recognize and continue supporting limited use of city,
id and st in configuration files, though these are deprecated for
eventual removal in a future release.

On a positive note, this provided an opportunity to design out
some reported bugs and add in numerous requested features. Highlights
include:

 * Because NOAA/NWS now treats forecast data in the same way as alerts,
   the alert reporting features are now much better integrated and no
   longer considered a beta test.

 * The lack of memorable alert/forecast zone coding in the new scheme
   drove development of intelligent search functionality, allowing users
   to find stations and zones through a variety of methods like place
   names, IATA/FAA/ICAO/FIPS/ZIP codes and even raw coordinates.

 * To reduce unnecessary load on NOAA/NWS servers, the utility now
   caches retrieved data for a configurable period of time.

 * Airport code lists are no longer maintained in configuration (though
   they are still easily overridden through configuration), and are
   instead now separately managed in a manner similar to the other
   pregenerated correlation data.

Worth noting, however, is that the new forecast data publication format
(now essentially identical to the alert format) is all-caps freeform
prose, and not easily parsed as a result. Due to the lengthy nature of
this output, piping it through a pager is highly recommended.
