Based on the same thread listed in the apple support communities I came up with a simple solution.
1. Have access to 10.6.x
2. Compress System/Library/WidgetResources
3. Replace 10.5 System/Library/WidgetResources with 10.6 System/Library/WidgetResources
4. I also swapped weather widgets from 10.5 and 10.6
should work with 10.7 since its all html and js.
and now the weather widget works (in 10.5 at least)