Since time immemorial, people have always tried to predict and understand weather conditions using different signs and trying to guess whether it will be sunny or maybe rainy.
Unfortunately, they struggled and rarely got anything right. However, things have so far changed. There are so many applications that can help everyone understand different weather conditions and get everything right.
The OpenWeatherMap API is one of the best APIs in getting the job done for you. This API helps developers endow their applications with features that can predict different weather conditions accurately. Such features are very important in hundreds of applications such as an event management system, a travel application, or even these lamps that replicate weather conditions with colored lights.
Getting an OpenWeatherMap API Key
The OpenWeatherMap API is provided by RapidAPI. Getting the API key is as easy as signing up for a free RapidAPI user account. This way, you get a single API Key that allows you to access all APIs on their platform. This includes the OpenWeatherMap API. After that, you can then connect to the OpenWeatherMap API and use it in your applications to connect to weather forecasts and historic information without much hustle. You will get the basic OpenWeatherMap API for free but restricted to 60 calls every minute.
OpenWeatherMap API Endpoints
You will be provided with three subsections concerning the API, the API details, the endpoints, and the discussion subsections. The endpoints subsection contains information on how to use the API, the discussion subsection has a community forum where you can ask questions related to the API while the API details subsection contains more information about the API.
The endpoints subsection has the functionality of the API. Here, you get a list of all the available endpoints or tasks with an HTTP method for each of the tasks. The tasks provided include;
- Forecast Weather Data: This allows you to get a weather forecast for any location in the world. It comes with a flexible weather calculation algorithm that not only provides weather data for towns but also for any geographical coordinates. This is important for big towns and cities where the weather might be different in different parts of the city. It provides forecast data every three hours, available for up to five days. The weather data is available in XML or JSON formats.
- Current Weather Data: This request provides one with weather data for any part of the world and is updated online from data obtained from over 40,000 weather stations around the globe.
- Search Weather Data: This task allows one to search for data by city name. You actually do not have to enter the entire city name, you can just enter a part of the name and get the right cities with that name in the world. However, the more precise the name, the more precise the list that you get. If you want to make it more accurate, you can add the country name or two-letter country code after the city name, separated by a comma.
If you would like to test any of these endpoints, you will be required to add the parameters needed in the same endpoints subsection and then click the Test Endpoint Data button. This way, you will get a response for the current endpoint.
Finally, the OpenWeatherMap API allows you to choose your programming language of choice and get code immediately that implements the endpoint you have just tested. This is done through the request snippet block.