Topic: Best API for getting bulk forecast data and/or forecast maps

[swraife]

I'm going to build a physical map of a US state backlit with an LED grid (probably between 16x16 and 64x64), and I want to display weather information with the LED grid (basic stuff like current temp, forecasted temp, precipitation chance, precipitation amount, wind speed, etc). I'm confident I can take the weather data I get, transform it however I need, and display it w/ LEDs. This question is about where I should get the data. It seems my options are:

1) fetch individual data points for each LED. This seems easy enough with api.weather.gov or various other services. The main problem is the # of requests required. A 16x16 grid refreshing every 10 min would require ~37k requests/day. 64x64 :  ~590k. For all paid services I've checked out, this would get very expensive. I'd like to keep costs under $10/month. api.weather.gov is free and I couldn't find any mention of request limits, but I'm guessing they won't be happy if I start hitting them with 590k requests/day. Anyone know? I'm also wondering how stable that API is?

2) fetch the above data points in a single request. It would be amazing if I could make one request w/ four geo coords and get a response with an array of all the weather data in that area. Or if I could make one request to say, api.weather.gov, with an array of all the gridpoints I want, and get back all that data at once, that would work great as well. The only place I've found that might have something like this is openweathermap's bulk download feature, but that is only available on their tiers at $470+/month.

3) fetch a map image with no baselayer. meteomaps.com seems pretty ideal, but I'm concerned about the future of the project (last update was in 11/2019 and just said "changes are coming"). This option in particular requires some more coding work, so I'd prefer something fairly stable. api.weather.gov doesn't seem to have a working service for this. openweathermap and all the other main ones I've found are pricey.

I'm not too worried about having the absolute best, most accurate API, as I'll be displaying a fairly "low-res" map no matter what. Any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

[doubleohwhatever]

meteomaps.com seems pretty ideal, but I'm concerned about the future of the project (last update was in 11/2019 and just said "changes are coming").

Just now seeing this but figured I'd reply anyway. Two things:

1) Meteomaps isn't going anywhere. It's just an in-house project we work on in between client projects. That said, we're pretty close (next 30-60 days) to launching a revamp under a new name (Meteomaps just didn't click with a lot of people), a ton of new features, and a vastly simplified interface (full API will still be available). The biggest delay has been a complete re-write of our map server software.

2) If you haven't already figured out a way to do what you're after then shoot me a PM with exactly what you need. We're still in beta for now, so it would be free. Once we launch, we'll have a hobby plan at $5/month. If you only need updates every 10 minutes the I'm sure we could come up with something that would fit within that plan. I'm thinking a custom API call or something to get multiple points at once, etc.

[tmabell]

There seem to be website registration/password reset issues.

Database Error:
Data truncated for column 'expires' at row 1 ...

Attempts to reset password result in no email being sent.  Attempts to register result in the database error above.

[doubleohwhatever]

Sorry about that. You caught us right in the middle of some db work. Signups were supposed to be closed but it looks like that switch didn't get flipped.

Anyway, all should be good now. Note that we haven't launched our overhaul yet. So if you don't find the service to your liking now, please check back towards the end of may/first of june.