UPDATE (July 2013): This set has now been updated to 92 different weather conditions, 4 sizes of each icon, and a complete set included in vector (SVG) format.
Original post follows:
I’ve had plenty of people visiting my site looking for weather symbols to download so I thought it was about time that I actually made some weather symbols of my own.
Lots of people have been in touch wanting to use the old BBC ones which I ‘refreshed’ slightly as part of the 2005 BBC Weather relaunch. Obviously those symbols are owned by the Beeb, but I’ve been directing people back to the Weather Centre anyway, in the sure knowledge that they won’t be allowed to use them for copyright reasons. One visitor also reported back that they were refused permission because it also might be perceived as a ‘degree of endorsement by the BBC’.
Which is entirely fair enough.
So I decided to design a set of 40 new and unique weather symbols / icons that have a kind of ‘homage to old school TV graphics’ quality to them, but which have been designed entirely from scratch and obviously haven’t taken a single point, line or vector from the originals.
To start with I built the basic cloud shape from 3 circles, giving it a slightly more ‘graphic’ quality and a neat symmetry. This new set has a different sunshine element too, with pointed ‘rays’ – I’d never been entirely happy with the placement of the rectangular rays on the Beeb ones – it might have been OK for TV forecasts back in the day, but I figured I could use something slightly less blocky for my own set.
Cloud Symbol construction
I’d also wanted to see how different background colours might help to give some added sense of the weather conditions, so the symbol sits on a blue background for sunshine or showers, and a grey background for overcast conditions. Also, as the cloud shape is not broken by a rain/snow/hail symbol I could make the cloud opaque, and have used two shades of grey for precipitation – so the darker grey is used for heavy rain/snow etc.
Strangely, the Beeb set had a number of shared weather symbols for day and night (even when the night conditions were showery) so I’ve added a complete set of new night-time weather symbols that sit on a dark blue colour for showers, and a dark grey colour for the rest.
I suppose there’s always the chance that rain is ‘showery’ even under total cloud cover (is that right?), but I guess if the sun peeping out is good enough for daytime, then the moon should make sense for night. Obviously the downside of this is the appearance of a crescent moon symbol – which says ‘night-time’ for sure – but may upset purists who would prefer to see the correct moon phase. If there’s enough interest I may add alternate moon-phase versions to the package.
It may be that the darker grey (night) versions could actually be used as part of the day-time set anyway – perhaps the darker grey could be used for 10 oktas only – or when very heavy precipitation is expected. I’ll wait and see whether the symbols are used like this (if they end up being used at all).
So, hopefully now if anyone arrives at this site looking to ‘borrow’ some weather symbols they might instead decide to buy this new set and avoid any risk of copyright infringement. It’s probably worth pointing out that these symbols come as a set of 40 PNG images at four different sizes, but they do not include transparency (they all sit on a coloured square). They’re designed for use in weather tables or charts – they’re not so ideal for placing over a map. I may produce some more weather symbol sets with transparency for use on weather maps if there turns out to be enough interest in this set.
Let’s see.
Buy : Weather Symbols
Comments welcome.