Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with something completely new to me: getting weather data. The title I picked was “meteorològic,” which I think is Catalan for “meteorological.” Fancy, huh?
First, I started by hitting up Google. I just typed in “how to get weather data” and hoped for the best. I saw a bunch of websites offering APIs, which, honestly, sounded a bit intimidating at first.
Finding an API
After clicking around a bit, I found a few that looked promising. Some were free, some had paid plans…it was a bit overwhelming! I decided to go with one that had a free tier because, well, I’m cheap. No shame in that, right?
- I signed up for an account. It was pretty straightforward – just needed an email address and a password.
- Then, they gave me this thing called an API key. I figured it was like a password to access their data, so I copied it and kept it somewhere safe.
Making the Request
Next came the tricky part – actually getting the data. I read through the API documentation (which was surprisingly helpful). It showed me how to structure a request. I learned that request is what ask the website for specific information.
It was basically like typing a special URL into my browser, but instead of getting a webpage, I’d get back raw data. And I needed to include that API Key and choose a city, so the URL can know who I am, and what information I want.
I messed around with different parameters, like the location (I used Barcelona, cause why not?) and the units (Celsius, because I’m not a monster). Then I hit “Enter” and… boom! I got back a bunch of text. It was a bit messy.
Making Sense of it All
This “messy text” was actually something called JSON. At first, I was like, “What the heck is this?” But after a bit of Googling, I figured out it was just a way to organize data. Kinda like a really detailed list.
I spent some time playing around, just trying to understand the structure. Then I copied to an online tool to format that messy text, so I can see the data clearly. I figured out which parts represented the temperature, humidity, wind speed, and all that good stuff.
It was actually pretty cool to see all that information! I mean, I could have just checked a weather app, but where’s the fun in that? It was way more satisfying to get the raw data myself. I felt like a super-hacker, even though it was really pretty simple in the end.
So, that’s my “meteorològic” adventure for today. Not bad for a day’s work, right?