About Wanted Weather
How the Gazette Is Made
Wanted Weather prints a weather page for 196,000 towns and cities in the manner of an 1880s frontier newspaper — but every figure on it is modern and measured.
The forecast comes from global numerical weather models served through the Open-Meteo format: temperature, feels-like, wind and gusts, rain and snow, cloud, humidity, pressure and atmospheric energy, hour by hour for the coming week. Forecasts are refreshed every half hour.
The Almanac uses TerraClimate monthly normals for 1991–2020 — thirty years of average highs, lows, rainfall, wind and snow cover for each town. Frost dates are reckoned where the monthly mean minimum crosses +3 °C; snow is said to lie when the month’s average snow-water equivalent reaches 5 mm. Daylight is worked out from the town’s latitude.
The best time to visit scores each month from 1 to 5: it loses points for highs under 16 °C or over 29 °C, nights below −5 °C, and more than 45 mm of rain.
The stories are written from these numbers by the Gazette’s own rules, so every sentence carries a figure from the town it describes.