Real-time weather data is crucial for your business. Businesses also need future and historical weather data to make informed decisions. Weather conditions significantly impact your business operations and activities, especially those involving shipping and procurement. In fact, weather affects everyone. For example, weather conditions decide which clothes we wear or outdoor activities we engage in.
This article will show you the best way to get real-time weather data and why people succeed with that data.
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What Is The Best Way To Get Real-Time Weather Data?
You’ll find many options to get real-time weather information. However, not all sources provide accurate data, and inaccurate data can cost you heavily. That’s why businesses worldwide use a real-time weather API like weatherstack to ensure the weather data is consistent and accurate. Developers also use weather APIs to integrate global weather data into their web apps and display weather conditions for any country worldwide.
If you’re looking for a powerful real-time weather API, weatherstack is the best option. More than 75,000 companies worldwide use weatherstack, including tech giants like Ericsson and Microsoft.
The weatherstack API uses rock-solid data sources, such as large weather stations in key locations around the globe. This helps the API provide consistent and accurate real-time weather data every time.
If you want to learn how to create a weather web app using a weather data API, check out our article on creating a weather web app using Node Express and weatherstack API.
How Does Real-Time Weather Data Help Businesses?
Some businesses/industries can’t operate properly without weather data (both real-time and weather forecast data.) For example, if you run a business in the construction industry, you need to know when it will rain. It’s because heavy rain can create problems for construction jobs related to roofing, excavating, concrete, etc. Collecting real-time and future weather data helps businesses identify weather patterns and trends. Businesses can then use this information to predict how weather conditions can affect their operations and make plans accordingly. Accurate weather information also helps with natural disaster planning.
With weatherstack, you can quickly get real-time weather data of any location using the API’s ‘current’ endpoint. You just need to attach your desired location to the endpoint, and the API will quickly return current weather information. The weatherstack API also comes with a ‘forecast’ endpoint that gives up to 14 days of weather forecast data.
Which Real-Time Weather Parameters Do Businesses Need?
Getting information only about temperature is not enough. Businesses also need to know about rain, snowfall, cloud covers, wind speed, etc., to make informed decisions. One of the key reasons people succeed with weather data is that they have detailed weather information. However, not all weather APIs provide detailed weather data. Weatherstack, on the other hand, returns several current weather parameters, such as temperature, humidity, cloud cover, wind speed, wind degree, visibility, pressure, and more. The API also returns the observation time, which shows the exact time when the API collected the returned weather data.
How Can You Get Weather Data For Any Location?
If you’re creating a weather app, you’ll need weather data for almost every location around the globe. However, you can’t expect every weather API to provide weather data for every location. Different APIs cover different locations and the weatherstack API covers millions of cities and towns worldwide. The API can give you real-time weather data for almost any location.
How Easy Is It To Get Real-Time Weather Data Using An API?
Some weather APIs are difficult to use and take a lot of time to return data, impacting your business operations. However, if you’re using the weatherstack API, you’re sure to get weather data quickly and easily. Weatherstack returns data in milliseconds and delivers it in lightweight JSON format to ensure high speed. The API uses a powerful cloud infrastructure and has an uptime of almost 100%.
The weatherstack API also allows you to simultaneously request data for multiple locations to save you time and effort. To make a bulk location request, you simply need to pass multiple locations (semicolon-separated) to the URL of the API.
Additionally, you can integrate the weatherstack API into your apps quickly. The API has extensive documentation that includes a step-by-step guide on getting started. The API’s documentation also explains each API event and method in detail and has coding examples in different programming languages.
Is There Any Free Real-Time Weather API?
While you’ll find several free weather APIs in the market, most don’t provide accurate data. Weatherstack, on the other hand, returns accurate and consistent weather data. You can use the weatherstack API for free to get real-time weather data (250 API calls per month.) Suppose you want to get more API calls, historical weather data, and weather forecast data. In that case, you can also choose from paid packages.
Weatherstack comes with three paid plans:
Standard: 50,000 API calls/month, real-time, historical, astronomy, hour by hour data, and a few other useful features
Professional: 300,000 API calls/month, historical, astronomy, real-time, hour by hour, and 7-day forecast data, bulk queries, unlimited support, and several other useful features
Business: 1 million API calls per month, real-time, historical, hour by hour, astronomy and 14-day forecast data, location lookup, unlimited support, bulk queries, and many other useful features.
Which Real-Time Weather API Should You Use?
While there are many real-time weather APIs in the market, weatherstack is definitely the best choice. The weatherstack API is easy to use and offers highly accurate real-time data. The API returns useful parameters, such as temperature, wind speed, wind degree, cloud covers, humidity, and more. You can also request data for multiple locations simultaneously. Additionally, you can also use the weatherstack API to get historical weather data and weather forecast data.
