Using the Weather package

The /whisk.system/weather package offers a convenient way to call the Weather Company Data for IBM Cloud API.

The package includes the following action.

Entity	Type	Parameters	Description
/whisk.system/weather	package	username, password	Services from the Weather Company Data for IBM Cloud API
/whisk.system/weather/forecast	action	latitude, longitude, timePeriod	forecast for specified time period

Creating a package binding with the username, password and host values is suggested. This way, you don't need to specify the credentials every time you invoke the actions in the package.

Setting up the Weather package

1. Create a Weather Company Data service instance in your IBM Cloud dashboard.

2. Create a package binding that is configured for your Weather Company Data service using the username, password, and host from its service credentials.

wsk package bind /whisk.system/weather myWeather -p username MYUSERNAME -p password MYPASSWORD -p host HOST

Getting a weather forecast for a location

The /whisk.system/weather/forecast action returns a weather forecast for a location by calling an API from The Weather Company. The parameters are as follows:

• username: Username for The Weather Company Data for IBM Cloud that is entitled to invoke the forecast API.
• password: Password for The Weather Company Data for IBM Cloud that is entitled to invoke the forecast API.
• latitude: The latitude coordinate of the location.
• longitude: The longitude coordinate of the location.
• timePeriod: Time period for the forecast. Valid options are:
  • 10day - (default) Returns a daily 10-day forecast
  • 48hour - Returns an hourly 2-day forecast
  • current - Returns the current weather conditions
  • timeseries - Returns both the current observations and up to 24 hours of past observations, from the current date and time.
• host: Host for The Weather Company Data for IBM Cloud

The following is an example of getting a 10-day forecast.

• Invoke the forecast action in your package binding to get the weather forecast.

  wsk action invoke myWeather/forecast --result \
  --param latitude 43.7 \
  --param longitude -79.4
  

  {
      "forecasts": [
          {
              "dow": "Wednesday",
              "max_temp": -1,
              "min_temp": -16,
              "narrative": "Chance of a few snow showers. Highs -2 to 0C and lows -17 to -15C.",
              ...
          },
          {
              "class": "fod_long_range_daily",
              "dow": "Thursday",
              "max_temp": -4,
              "min_temp": -8,
              "narrative": "Mostly sunny. Highs -5 to -3C and lows -9 to -7C.",
              ...
          },
          ...
      ],
  }