Precipitation Forecast Weather API - What are you using?

⚙️ Custom Apps and Drivers Node-RED
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Looking for recommendations on a Weather Forecast API that specifically has

  • Precipitation Probability
  • Precipitation Accumulation
  • Free or really cheap

as Im starting to work on automated sprinkler timers based on previous day rainfall and probability/level of current day rainfall

Ive found a few older - topics .. but want to bubble something newer up

Currently I have some nodered tests to compare forecasts/actual using

  • World Weather Online - $5/month
  • Visual Crossing -- current leader, no reason other then there is no reason against it
  • Tomorrow.io - return date/time payload is confusing me.
  • Wetter (via RapidAPI) - API via a sub service scares me for dependability reasons

I have seen a lot of talk about the following, but I cant seem to find any of the precipitation amount/probability info, but I could be missing it or not doing a proper request?

Anyone solve this in other ways/services that I might have missed. Any recommendations appreciated. Ill update this thread once my testing of the services yields any data accuracy results.

2

I use the OpenWeatherMap-Alerts Weather Driver. Generally I'm happy with the driver, although the accumulated precipitation data at least for my area seems kinda questionable. The number tends to go up and down seemingly at random which is not how accumulation works.

2 Likes
3

Ive got to dig more into OpenWeather and find out why I cant see these values .. thanks

4

I use open weather with this driver. I think it opens a few more options of things to look at, above the built in HE driver.. It has options on the device page that you set which options you want.

I suits my needs.

1 Like
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@terminal3 Thanks .. Im sure Ive tried that driver before and also direct OWM API .. but this now lets me document my results.

From the driver Line 1270 I grabbed the API call added some lat/lon and my API key (if you want to test, you can swap out your key for those playing along at home)

https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/onecall?lat=35.7796&lon=78.6382&exclude=minutely,hourly&mode=json&units=imperial&appid=YOUR-OWM-KEY-HERE

Maybe Im just being dense, but I dont see anything around precipitation/rain etc .. @terminal3 can you confirm that you do/dont use any precipitation type results? I keep seeing OWN being referenced for this use case, and feel like Im missing something or chasing my tail ... the latter I do a lot

"daily": [
{
"dt": 1645336800,
"sunrise": 1645318743,
"sunset": 1645357667,
"moonrise": 1645371900,
"moonset": 1645325640,
"moon_phase": 0.62,
"temp": {
"day": 29.66,
"min": 20.71,
"max": 32.29,
"night": 26.76,
"eve": 27.86,
"morn": 21.18
},
"feels_like": {
"day": 21.67,
"night": 26.76,
"eve": 21.58,
"morn": 21.18
},
"pressure": 1032,
"humidity": 42,
"dew_point": 8.67,
"wind_speed": 9.66,
"wind_deg": 292,
"wind_gust": 13.89,
"weather": [
{
"id": 801,
"main": "Clouds",
"description": "few clouds",
"icon": "02d"
}
],
"clouds": 17,
"pop": 0,
"uvi": 2.6
},
6

ahhh pop if Probability of Precipitation .. need to figure out where you find accumulation @pfmiller

7

hrm, ok ... looks like it only shows rain results when there is rain. Which is good/bad .. this is a good lead .. Thanks ..

EDIT: Fantastic

"clouds": 3,
"pop": 1,
"rain": 1.62,
"uvi": 10.15
8

I do use the precent precipitation. I I don't use the raintoday but I assume that is accumulation for the day.

weather4
weather4319×758 14.7 KB

9

Thanks -- yeah, it looks like whenever I called it, there was never any rain ... this is great. Really appreciate it

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