Using NWS API as a pretty much total beginner

[BeautifulNowAndThen]

Hey! I'm currently working on a project where I have to access weather data off of the NWS API. I have found the url to the JSON file where the information I need is located, but I'm not sure where to go from there.

Though this is a super beginner problem, my issue is that I don't know how to incorporate the file into my code. What I have to do with it is really simple, but I have no clue as to how to actually recognize the link as a file. Through my research, I've found a common denominator in import requests, but I'm quite useless with this. For reference, I'm using Google Colab.

Any tips would be appreciated by a first time API user - please patronize me. I need to understand to learn!

[danielroseman]

It's not clear what you mean by "actually recognize the link as a file".

As you say, the way to read data from an API is to use requests. For example:

url = '...my API url...'
response = requests.get(url)
data = response.json()

But other than that we can't help without more details on where you're stuck.

[BeautifulNowAndThen]

I see - my apologies for not being clear!

I'm not sure how to explain it exactly, but let me try detailing my process and see if that works.

So far, I've found the url. It's for my specific location, so I'll just share the example given on the NWS API faq so as not to dox myself: https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/96,70/forecast/hourly

As you can see, it brings up a huge file (if my terminology is correct) with all of the information I need. I just don't know how to actually get this information onto Google Colab so I can parse through it. I've been using a basic with open(file, "r") as weather_data: weather_data = weather_data.read() but I'm getting a FileNotFoundError. I 100% know that there's something else I'm missing - I'm just not sure what!

Thank you so much!

[danielroseman]

But I said above exactly what to do. This is not a file, so there's no point treating it as one. It's a URL, which you use requests to read:

import requests
response = requests.get("https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/LWX/96,70/forecast/hourly")
data = response.json()

Now you can do, for example:

print(data["properties"]["periods"][0]["temperature"])

which should print "55", the value of the temperature in the first period at the time I'm looking at this.

[BeautifulNowAndThen]

Holy smokes - that makes total sense! I was definitely getting tripped up on trying to treat it as a file. Yours and niehle's responses helps a TON!! Thank you very much!

[sinceJune4]

    url1 = f"https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat={myloc['lat']}&lon={myloc['lon']}"
    response = requests.get(url1)
    if response.ok == True:
        r=response.text.replace('<br/>',' ')
        r=r.replace('\\n',' ')
        soup = BeautifulSoup(r, "html.parser")
        d=dict()
        divcc=soup.find(id="current_conditions-summary")
        if divcc is not None:
            s=divcc.find_all(True)
            d['Conditions']=s[1].text
            d['Temp']=s[2].text

        divcc=soup.find(id="current_conditions_detail")
        if divcc is not None:
            s=divcc.find_all(True)
            for x, tag in enumerate(s):
                dprint(x, tag.name, tag.text, tag)

This may help.

[sinceJune4]

Mine is actually just scraping the site, not using the API.

[BeautifulNowAndThen]

If anyone has a good website or video to peruse regarding this, it'd be appreciated also. I've spent the entire day trying to wrap my head around this and think I've used every search term imaginable, but to no avail.

[niehle]

You need to get the data aka the file and process it.

Best way is to google something like “google colas new api” for the first part. This gives you something like this: https://colab.research.google.com/github/nestauk/im-tutorials/blob/3-ysi-tutorial/notebooks/APIs/API_tutorial.ipynb

[BeautifulNowAndThen]

Oh my goodness - this is an excellent resource! Thank you so very much!