Case Study

Weather.vi

A custom-built weather resource that has become a go-to for St. John residents and visitors alike.

A Genuinely Useful Resource

Weather.vi is a weather data site built specifically for St. John in the US Virgin Islands. It pulls together live forecasts, recent conditions, ocean data, and tropical storm information from multiple sources into one fast, easy-to-read page. It has earned a loyal following among locals and vacationers who rely on it regularly.

Serious Engineering Under the Hood

The site is built on custom PHP and JavaScript, aggregating live data from multiple external endpoints and presenting it in a clean, organized layout. That's genuinely complex work. Making it fast on top of that takes real care — the site uses smart caching strategies to serve static data quickly while keeping time-sensitive information fresh. The result is a data-heavy page that loads at lightning speed, which isn't easy to achieve and makes a real difference for users checking conditions in real time.

A Custom Editing Tool

Over time, the client needed the ability to edit certain content on the site without touching code. I built a custom content management tool specifically for this purpose, making it easy to update sections of the page independently. Kevin described it simply: "So complete, and so easy!"

A Connected Ecosystem

Weather.vi and Coconuts.vi cross-link to each other, and the rental property is also listed on VRBO, which links back to the site. That kind of intentional link structure — connecting two owned properties and earning a reference from a high-authority third-party domain — helps build domain authority and improves visibility in search. It's a good example of thinking about a web presence as a whole, not just individual pages.