The WU API has been around since 2010 to help you develop apps and websites as well as manage your Personal Weather Station data. During that time, we’ve watched you build amazing products and visualize weather data with creativity and purpose.
Over the years, our infrastructure has struggled to keep up with the growing numbers of users coming to us for API data. We realized we needed to make changes to ensure the highest level of quality, performance and uptime for our API users.
As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to retire the Weather Underground API. The Weather Company, which acquired WU back in 2012, offers a powerful suite of enterprise-grade APIs that might be better suited to meet your scale and performance needs while offering a broader range of weather data. You can see these products here.
Here’s what you need to know going forward:
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Your subscriptions, and therefore access, will continue to work through 12/31/2018.
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If you are a paying WU API customer, you will receive a call from a representative from The Weather Company, and IBM business, to discuss transition options to other API services. If you’d like to have these conversations sooner, contact us.
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If you are a Personal Weather Station owner, you will receive more information about our plan to offer free access to the data you provide to Weather Underground. We’ll reach out once that plan has been finalized.
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The WU Forum will continue to be the best place to connect, keep you informed, share your feedback and get your questions answered as we go through this process.
We are grateful for your commitment to Weather Underground and appreciate your understanding and support as we work through this process. These changes will allow us to continually improve our services and develop new features to keep WU a thriving place for you for many years to come.
Thanks for being part of the community.
Sincerely,
The WU Team
Tim Roche, Official Rep
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Posted 1 year ago
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Personally I am not worried about getting history of my data I send to you. it is written to SQL on my site as well.
I think most PWS users that run a site would like to know if you could confirm there will be a forecast offered via API to PWS Owners or not?
Tim Roche, Official Rep
- 337 Posts
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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Victoria Gardner
Weather Underground API customer service
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
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As I've noted elsewhere, development is in progress for enabling precision on some values. We hope that it will be finished by the end of April.
Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
- 93 Reply Likes
Then look at the documentation here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eKCnKXI9xnoMGRRzOL1xPCBihNV2rOet08qpE_gArAY/edit
Specifically, you'll want the 5-day forecast API: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RY44O8ujbIA_tjlC4vYKHKzwSwEmNxuGw5sEJ9dYjG4/edit
There are five different formats in which you can request a forecast, so you will want to see which is best for your purposes.
If you have any trouble, please let me know.
Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
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Are individual weather station owners important to WU's business? What percentage of data come from donated data? What percentage of data collection is paid for by WU?
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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Victoria
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Nevermind, It's on your site:
U.S. current conditions data comes from 180,000+ weather stations across the country including:
- Almost 2,000 Automated Surface Observation System (ASOS) stations located at airports throughout the country. These are maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration and observations are updated hourly, or more frequently when adverse weather affecting aviation occurs (low visibility, precipitation, etc).
- Over 250,000 Personal Weather Stations (PWS's) that are part of Weather Underground's ever-expanding PWS network. Stations are put through strict quality controls and observations are updated as often as every 2.5 seconds.
- Over 26,000 weather stations that are part of the Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) which is managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For further information, see https://madis.ncep.noaa.gov/.
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I think you meant to say, " I spend all my time PRETENDING TO BE working with individuals on individual issues, NOT solving problems which were created by the greed of my paycheck-signers."
When they lay you off, have fun finding employment.
Corporate America: Getting free information and services from the Government and free Volunteer labor, while charging outrageous prices for the same.
The Revolution is coming!
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currently I pay a monthly amount (20$ US), the stratus-drizzle plan,for a api key to get weather data. What happens after the end of 12/31/2018 ?
Tim Roche, Official Rep
- 337 Posts
- 44 Reply Likes
Someone will reach out to you shortly to review your options, We are asking customers to move to our API offerings through the weather channel. These APIs are supported by a much larger team and are much better suited for using in production systems. The downside is they tend to be more expensive.
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
- 93 Reply Likes
If you are a current PWS (personal weather station) user/key holder, you will continue to have complete, uninterrupted access to your data as well as a limited range of additional data, such as short-term forecast, through the Weather Underground API as well as through the Wunderground web site. If you have a PWS (or many PWS's!) currently reporting to us, your access for that data is, and will be, free.
I will check on the 10-day forecast specifically.
Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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Would it be possible to email me to provide details (url, exact use, context)? I want to understand your needs. It helps me to understand the issues at play within the context of possible solutions.
Thank you!
Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
voicemail: 978-552-1406
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If your new system (marketing team?) were worth anything they would know to implement rate limiters or other means to control traffic from a free developer account, like practically every other service created by competent developers. Seriously, in 2019 **in the internet age**, you're pay-only and shunning developers like that? It's a shame.
You want to know how to do it?
This is how you do it (but be more competitive in price): https://openweathermap.org/price
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
- 93 Reply Likes
We wish you the best in your future We're glad to host a place for open discussion about the WU API transition.
We'd like to remind our PWS owners/contributors:
- Your past data will always be available to you for viewing and download in a web browser on wunderground.com, just as it always has.
- If you are in the small minority of people who use the WU API and a corresponding WU API key to obtain data in .json format, here's what's happening:
- We'll open a registration page for you to get a new API key to get your data in .json format
- You'll sign up and get a new API key for the new API
- Once the registration page is open, we'll keep the old API and your old API key active for 2 weeks to allow transition time to your new key
We'll announce in the forum when the registration page opens.
Or, email victoria.gardner@ibm.com to receive an email notification once it's ready.
The new API will provide access to:
- Current observations from the PWS network
- 5 day daily forecast
- PWS historical data
- PWS lookup by geocode, zip code and location
- Call volume: 1500/day, 30/minute
The documentation for the new API is available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eKCnKXI9xnoMGRRzOL1xPCBihNV2rOet08qpE_gArAY/edit
Victoria Gardner
Victoria.gardner@ibm.com
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Tim Roche, Official Rep
- 337 Posts
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But as written the second interesting part is the "local forcast" fpor at least the next day, especially for awaited rain, temperatures and such. But this is enough to check once per hour or such.
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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--Victoria
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
- 93 Reply Likes
-Victoria
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
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Aaron
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Tim Roche, Official Rep
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But to hide, ignore 100's if not 1000's of emails and just stonewall its customers, well then....there needs to be a change of management and probably some new staff.
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reading between the lines, I sense that it has been the mis use of the free api's and WU data in ways that was never intended that has put too much strain on the server's and that is what has prompted the removal of the free api's as they are now and a move to a different system aimed at commercial customers who can afford to pay more and will, yes? (if so I can understand that, as some systems have relied on wundergrounds data as your guys expense too much)
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For developers who use WU API data for non-commercial purposes, you will have access to a new plan for a personal use, low call volume API.What about developers who use the API for commercial purposes? The new Core plan API might have what I need, but it also has way more than I need. And the fact that there's no price listed anywhere makes me think that this will be priced far beyond what I can pay. My users want to view current data from a specific station. It's a small app that I made as a hobby project in my spare time, I'm not a big business (or a business at all). I have a small but loyal user base who like the simple and quick data presentation that I provide. I make enough to cover the current API costs, but If it costs even double what the old API was, then I'm out.
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Tim Roche, Official Rep
- 337 Posts
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We don't have a list available for changes to the API, please check back here periodically for announcements
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Tim Roche, Official Rep
- 337 Posts
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Andy
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 642 Posts
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Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
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Will there be a free API key for the Weather.com API for low-volume use offered so I can rewrite the script for the new API? If not, I will likely have to discontinue the WU-forecast.php script (making several hundred current users quite peeved, in addition to my strong disappointment that WU continues to shed functions that have long been supported by your data contributors).
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 642 Posts
- 91 Reply Likes
Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
- 22 Posts
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But let's be clear that if the default endpoint is WU from Acurite, it's unlikely that it will ever change and there are always technical workarounds if things change.
Besides, the lifespan of those Acurite weather stations is short enough that as those default endpoints change, so will the defaults from Acurite.
As I said, smart work by WU.
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 642 Posts
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I convinced a lot of people in the region to deploy PWS's because I noted that the forecast got better after some days of data being sent, I think that the PWS network that all wx enthusiasts like us helped to built is one of the big assets that made WU appealing to TWC and then to IBM.
I understand business decisions, but as many has mentioned before, as a PWS network user and WU site user I feel all this was abandoned since these Corporate changes. The crowdsourcing model made you and all users had access to realtime data in remote location like yours and like ours in Latin America.
I just want a fair treat with a forecast API for users that has contributed to this platform (many of us for years when WU was a great startup). Just imagine how many hours in development has been invested like what saratogaWX has mentioned that must start again from 0 or loose what accomplished.
BTW, I came here via a Google search, did not received an email, all of you fellow PWS owners receive something ?
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
- 93 Reply Likes
We're trying to get to the point of rolling out information about this publicly, it's just not quite ready yet. More to come!
Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
- 2 Posts
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
- 93 Reply Likes
Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
- 16 Posts
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Also anyone know why we are nolonger allowed to delete bad data from out station page....
I do have a wepage that pulls data but rather then rewrite the code I might as well create a script to post data to my website direct. If openweather didnt have a broken unusable API I would use it.
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
- 93 Reply Likes
We have done everything we can to reach API keyholders. I'm sorry we were unable to reach you.
The API will continue to function past the end of the year for PWS owner/uploaders until the new API for PWS owner/uploaders is ready. If you want a peak at the documentation for the new API, you can look here.
Sincerely,
Victoria Gardner
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
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The question is now will this service be stopped by the end of the year? Is it just a new API key? Are there changes in the API interface that need software adaptations?
Tim Roche, Official Rep
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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I will also continue to follow up on this with you privately.
-Victoria Gardner
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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My email is victoria.gardner@ibm.com. Feel free to resend whatever question you have there.
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
- 92 Reply Likes
Victoria
victoria.gardner@ibm.com
phone: 978-552-1406
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
- 656 Posts
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I can contact someone on the sales side to push you up the contact queue if you'd like.
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Also waiting to hear what the plan will be for those of us who are contributing data. It would be good if a message is posted here when PWS owners are being contacted to make sure we aren't left out.
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
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Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
--Victoria
Trey Duncanson
Victoria Gardner, Official Rep
It's worth noting that the elevation seems to have been incorrect for some time. I see the same incorrect elevation in the old WU record as well.
--Victoria
Pauley Wallnutz
Paul Grace