Configuration

Any option can also be overridden per station from weewx.conf, in the report’s own section, without touching the skin at all. weewx merges these over the skin’s skin.conf, so weewx.conf wins.

[StdReport]
    [[NordlysReport]]
        skin = Nordlys
        [[[Nordlys]]]
            site_name = My station
            [[[[theme]]]]
                mode = dark

A page is a list of rows. A row is a list of tiles. A tile is a type plus a handful of options. The section name of a tile is its default observation, and the order of the page sections is the order of the navigation.

    [[pages]]
        [[[today]]]               # page id; order = nav order
            title = Today
            [[[[now]]]]           # a row
                title = Now       # optional row heading
                columns = 4       # max columns on wide screens (1-6)
                [[[[[outTemp]]]]] # a tile; section name = default obs
                    type = gauge
        [[[week]]]
            title = Week
            picker = week         # period dropdown: week | month | year

Rows collapse to two columns under 900 px and one column under 560 px.

Every page is emitted as a real, canonical HTML file - index.html for the first page and <id>.html for the rest - so pages are shareable, bookmarkable, and work with the browser’s back and forward buttons. Navigation links are real <a href> elements that work with JavaScript disabled, using each page’s server-rendered fallback; with JavaScript, clicks navigate in place through the History API from the shared payload.

A page-level picker adds a dropdown on the first row to jump to any past week, month or year. Weeks are real pages generated by Nordlys’s own week generator; months and years come from weewx’s SummaryBy generators.

Common tile keys are type, obs (one name, or a comma list for charts and tables) and title, which defaults to the observation’s label.

    min = -20            # gauge scale bounds (report units)
    max = 35
    style = compass      # wind-direction compass variant
    color = accent-2     # token or CSS color for the band and now-marker
    cold_below = 0       # switch to --nl-cold below this value
    hot_above = 25       # switch to --nl-hot above this value

    chart = line         # line | area | bar | scatter | windrose | calendar
    span = day           # 24h | day | yesterday | week | month | year
    obs = outTemp, dewpoint     # one or many series
    overlay = rainRate          # optional 2nd-axis line (e.g. over rain bars)
    colors = accent, accent-3   # optional per-series colors

    table = stats        # stats | records
    span = month         # stats:   day | yesterday | week | month | year | alltime
                         # records: 24h | day | yesterday | week | month | year
    obs = outTemp, outHumidity, barometer, windSpeed, rain

    style = cards        # render extremes as record cards (label, value, date)
    spans = year, alltime   # compare several spans in one card per metric

    section = sunpath    # sun | sunpath | moon | seasons | planets

    span = day           # day | month  (historical window to compare)
    obs = outTemp, windGust, rain

weewx generates one page per calendar month and year, plus NOAA text reports. [[archive]] defines the layout used by all of them - the same rows and tiles as a normal page, with span = archive meaning “this page’s own period”.

    [[archive]]
        [[[charts]]]
            columns = 2
            [[[[temperature]]]]
                type = chart
                chart = line
                obs = outTemp, dewpoint
                span = archive

Archive series are aggregated three-hourly on month pages and daily on year pages, with rain per day on both. Current-conditions tiles - gauge, stat, celestial and forecast - are not available on archive pages.

Nordlys is themed entirely through CSS design tokens, the --nl-* custom properties. The dark polar night palette is the hero theme and the light arctic daylight palette is derived from it. There is no shadow DOM and no compiled-in styling: anything you can see, you can re-theme from config.

    [[theme]]
        mode = auto        # auto (default) | dark | light
        switcher = true    # header theme switch (default true)
        [[[dark]]]         # --nl-* token overrides for dark mode
            accent = "#e86bc1"
        [[[light]]]        # ... and for light mode
            accent = "#7c3aed"

mode is the station default. The header carries a three-state switch - auto, light, dark - whose choice persists per browser in localStorage and overrides mode for that visitor, so a forced mode = dark still lets someone pick light. A tiny script in the <head> applies the saved choice before first paint, so there is no flash. Precedence is visitor choice, then mode, then system. Set switcher = false to hide the switch and pin the mode.

Defaults below, dark first and light second.

For changes tokens cannot express - layout tweaks, hiding elements - ship an extra stylesheet. Put user.css next to the generated site, either by copying it with a [CopyGenerator] copy_once entry or by dropping it in HTML_ROOT. It loads after nordlys.css, so its rules win.

[Nordlys]
    user_css = user.css

First-class day-counting definitions, rendered by climatology tiles. A day is counted when its daily aggregate of obs compares true against value.

    [[climatological_days]]
        span = year               # counting window (calendar year)
        [[[frost_days]]]
            label = Frost days
            obs = outTemp
            aggregate = min       # min | max | avg | sum (of the day)
            op = <                # < | <= | > | >=
            value = 0             # threshold, in report units

The shipped defaults follow Norwegian MET conventions: frost (frostdøgn), ice (isdøgn), summer days (sommerdager ≥ 20), tropical days (tropedager ≥ 30), tropical nights (tropenetter), precipitation (nedbørdøgn), growing (vekstdøgn) and storm days. Labels ship in English.

The climatology tile renders these as a matrix: one row per definition, one column per month plus a year total. Months outside the station’s archive coverage render blank rather than a misleading zero.

    [[[Nordlys]]]
        [[[[climatological_days]]]]
            [[[[[summer_days]]]]]        # override a threshold
                value = 25               # German/DWD summer day
            [[[[[ice_days]]]]]           # remove a shipped default
                enable = false
            [[[[[hot_days]]]]]           # add a new one
                label = Hot days
                obs = outTemp
                aggregate = max
                op = >=
                value = 28

With weewx daily summaries, tropical_nights counts the 24-hour minimum at or above 20 °C (tropedøgn). The strict tropenatt, a minimum over 20:00-08:00, is not expressible from daily summaries.

    [[live]]
        broker = wss://example.com:9001   # MQTT over WebSocket
        topic = weather/loop              # default: weather/loop

The topic must carry JSON loop packets keyed by weewx observation names. Unit suffixes such as outTemp_C are stripped, and dayRain feeds the rain tile. Values must be in the report’s unit system. When configured, the page header shows a live indicator and tiles update in place.

strftime patterns shared by the search-list extension and the front-end, so extreme times, chart axes, the footer and the records table all format the same way. Defaults are 24-hour time and European dates with abbreviated months.

    [[formats]]
        time = %H:%M                 # day-span extremes, records, live
        date = %d %b                 # month/year extremes, chart date ticks
        date_year = %d %b %Y         # all-time extremes, footer date
        datetime = %d %b %Y, %H:%M   # footer "Generated"
        weekday_time = %a %H:%M      # week-span extremes, records rows

The front-end understands a strftime subset - %H %M %S %d %m %b %a %Y %I %p - with month and day names in English. These keys are separate from weewx’s [Units][[TimeFormats]], which formats Cheetah tags such as NOAA reports rather than the payload.

Every page ships a meta description and OpenGraph and Twitter cards automatically. og:url, og:image and sitemap.xml need an absolute site root, resolved as base_url, then weewx’s [Station] station_url, then none. With no base URL those absolute-only parts are skipped.

    [[seo]]
        base_url = https://weather.example.com/nordlys
        description = Custom description for the whole site
        image = og-image.png     # static fallback card, relative to the site root
        dynamic_card = true      # live per-station cards when Pillow is present
        robots = true            # emit robots.txt + sitemap.xml (default)

• Descriptions are page-aware by default; override them with description.
• robots = false writes a Disallow: / robots.txt and an empty sitemap.
• A JSON-LD WebSite and Place block ships on every page.

[Labels]
    [[Generic]]
        outTemp = Outside temperature

Nordlys uses the report’s unit system; weewx converts everything before serialization. Set it per report in weewx.conf with unit_system = metricwx.

Nordlys generates the whole site every report cycle - there are no write-once pages - so config and theme changes take effect on the next cycle, or immediately with:

weectl report run --config /path/to/weewx.conf