So my current attempts at this have sucked - this is a bit trickier than I expected. I feel the way I have the system setup prevents me from doing a particularly good job at this. The problem lies in that I make forecasts looking at an hour at a time (without visibility in say the hour before or the hour after) whereas that is really what I need to be doing - seeing that say it was clear two hours ago, and suddenly the clouds have rolled in and the winds have picked up.

This is unfortunately a pretty big refactoring, so I am going to have to table this for now. But this will absolutely get done, eventually.

I really like the conditions matching idea. Kind of like a profile. That would rock. So a forecast based on your own profile input. Yes! I would pay for this.

A new forecast is certainly the easiest way to do it. I'll post back here when it's ready. I would love to get your feedback. If that doesn't work out, we can look at doing it a different way.

(Another idea I considering putting together is a way for anyone to create their own forecast - for whatever you like. Essentially you'd say the conditions right now are perfect for what I am after on your phone, then do it again whenever that happens again ... after a couple of times, I should be able to give you a pretty accurate forecast [the more it is trained, the better the results]). Would you find this useful?

As for why you haven't seen it on photography blogs, I haven't been able to get them to post about it. I've been pretty much ignored. The only luck I have had is that I also wrote a Windows Phone app, and I've gotten great coverage and reviews from that.

Speaking of apps, yes, we plan to eventually be in the app store for both Android and iPhone. I believe that will be my next project after completing alerts.

I think that whatever is easiest for you is the right answer. If it's easier to make it a new forecast than do that. And even though this is my idea I don't want this to take away from your current work. This is an absolutely fantastic web site. You really need to get this in the App Store. I really can't believe that this site doesn't get tons of traffic or the fact that I've never heard it mentioned in any of the photography blogs that I frequent. Your work deserves maximum exposure.

That is a great idea. What do you think if I made it a new forecast, looking explicitly for severe weather? Essentially it'd be good whenever there were thunderstorms, strong winds, or heavy rain?

Thinking the alerting part would simply be a part of the alert system I am working on this very instant during my lunch break - you'd simply sign up to get notified when the forecast was good for the severe weather.