Weather conditions affect different businesses in different ways. For example, in the retail industry, the demand and production of certain items change as the weather conditions change. Similarly, sectors like aviation, event planning, and agriculture are also affected by weather. Thus, they need access to accurate weather forecast data to make informed decisions, optimize operations, and mitigate potential risks in a timely manner. One of the quickest and easiest ways to access weather forecast data is to get weather data in Excel.
But how do you get accurate weather data in Excel? Using a reliable weather API like weatherstack API, you can easily integrate real-time, historical, and weather forecast data into Excel.
In this tutorial, we’ll provide a step-by-step guide for integrating weather forecast data into Excel using weatherstack API.
Table of Contents
Understanding Weather Forecast APIs
APIs serve as intermediaries between different software systems. This enables smooth communication and data exchange. Thus, a weather API enables developers to integrate weather data into their web apps, systems, or even Excel.
Depending on the API, you can integrate different types of weather data, such as real-time, historical, and weather forecast data. These APIs play a major role in providing access to weather data for diverse applications.
Weather APIs source data from various sources, including the National Weather Service (NWS). The NWS offers forecasts for a wide range of geographic areas, accurate weather predictions, and historical data
By using weather forecast APIs, subscribers can get access to a lot of meteorological data. This data enables them to learn more about weather patterns and how they have an impact on different sectors of the economy and geographic regions.
Choose the Right API for Your Needs
To obtain accurate and reliable weather data, it’s important to choose the best weather forecast API that can be customized for your needs. Consider the following factors:
- Begin by determining your needs.
- Take into account factors like the kind of weather data you require, the necessary geographic coverage, and the degree of detail required for analysis.
- Consider features like real-time data access, forecast maps, satellite images, and historical weather conditions while reviewing the options available.
- Take into account elements like the simplicity of integration into your current systems, the frequency of updates, and the dependability of data sources.
- Look for APIs that offer specific coverage, including access to data from national weather services and reputable sources.
- Prioritize APIs that provide customizable options, reliable support, and transparent pricing models.
Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Weather Forecast Data In Excel
Here’s how you can get weather data in Excel quickly and easily:
Step 1: Sign Up for weatherstack API
To integrate weatherstack API into Excel or any app, you must first sign up and create your account.
Once you’ve successfully created your account, you’ll find your unique API key in your weatherstack dashboard. This key acts as a special identifier to authenticate your queries. In other words, the API key is required to make API calls and get weather data in Excel.
Weatherstack offers a free plan as well as several premium plans with different features. You can choose your desired plan based on your requirements.
The weatherstack API provides access to real-time weather data as well as historical and weather forecast data. It provides a simple method for programmatically retrieving weather data.
Step 2: Formulate the API Request URL
You must use a certain structure of a request URL based on the intended API endpoint. The weatherstack API provides several endpoints, each with a distinct function. Some endpoints are given below.
- Real-time weather data: Obtain information on the current weather.
- Historical Weather: Access information on past weather.
- Historical Time-Series: Obtain weather data from the past.
- Weather Prediction: Retrieve a forecast for the next 14 days of weather.
- Location Lookup: Research a single or several locations.
The API queries for each of these endpoints begin with the following base URL.
You add the required endpoint to the base URL to create a full API request URL. For instance, to get the weather forecast data, you would add the “forecast” endpoint to the base URL, as seen below.
https://api.weatherstack.com/forecast
You might also need to provide further arguments for the URL, such as the endpoint’s location. You can see the query parameters for these typically after a question mark (?). Here’s what it would look like.
https://api.weatherstack.com/forecast?access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
You can also add further parameters to your request to make it more specific, such as:
- The place for which you’re looking for a weather prediction.
- You can also enter a postal code, IP address, city name, or latitude and longitude coordinates.
For instance:
https://api.weatherstack.com/forecast?access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY&query=London
Refer to the weatherstack API documentation for further information regarding API endpoints and functionality.
Step 3: Importing Weather Forecast Data into Excel
Now that you have set up a request URL, let’s get to importing the weather data in Excel!
- Open Microsoft Excel.
- Go to the Data tab
- Navigate into Get Data > From Other Sources > From Web. This “From Web” option allows you to import your data from a web source – in our case, it’s going to be from our API.
- Get your API request URL from Step 2. Here’s what you can use:
https://api.weatherstack.com/forecast?access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY&query=London
(Note: If you get any access restriction error, you can use this URL instead:
https://api.weatherstack.com/forecast?access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY&query=London)
- Paste this URL into the address bar from the “From Web” dialogue box. Press OK to continue.
- You should now see a navigation window that shows your data in a tabular format.
- Select the “Into Table” option under the “Convert” tab if the imported data appears to be accurate.
- Right-click on the “Value” column corresponding to the “forecast” row.
- Choose the “Drill Down” option.
- Once again, select the “Into Table” option under the “Convert” tab
- You’ll see the data in a table.
- An arrow-shaped button with left and right sides can be found at the top of the column.
- Uncheck the box next to “Use Original name as prefix”. Next, select “OK”.
- To import the data into Excel, finally, select “Close & Load” from the “Home” tab.
That’s it! The weather forecast data from the web API is now successfully imported into Excel. Now that the JSON data is available, you can examine and analyze it further, depending on your needs.
Step 4: Visualizing Weather Data in Excel
The data that we’ve retrieved from an API can be visualized in Excel in a few different ways. For example, you can use Excel’s chart tool. This function allows you to create a variety of charts, such as:
- Scatterplots
- Pie charts
- Line charts
- Bar charts
Here’s how you can create a chart:
- First, select the data that you wish to see in a chart.
- Then select the chart option by first selecting the Insert tab.
- You can choose the type of chart you wish to create and then edit it to your preferences in the chart dialogue box.
Other options for visualization include options such as Excel’s PivotTable and Power Query features.
By visualizing weather data in Excel, you can analyze how the weather is expected to change over the next few days. Similarly, if you’re a farmer, you can create an Excel workbook to analyze the gardening weather forecast.
Use Cases of Weather Data
Here are a few of the potential use cases of weather data:
Climate Change Research
Climate change researchers can use historical weather data and compare it to current weather data to uncover trends and patterns.
They can perform statistical analysis, produce visualizations, and generate reports by importing both datasets into Excel. This will help them learn more about how climate change, like severe weather, affects temperature, precipitation, and other weather factors.
Agricultural Planning
Excel weather forecast data can be used by agricultural experts to study climatic trends and make wise decisions regarding crop planting, watering, and harvesting.
- They can determine the best times to plant
- Forecast how much water plants require
- Modify agricultural operations in response to climatic patterns by comparing past climate data with current weather forecasts.
Energy Demand Forecasts
Energy businesses can forecast energy demand and improve resource allocation using weather data.
They can find relationships between weather patterns and energy use by examining historical data and contrasting it with the most recent detailed forecasts. This data can then be useful to effectively plan energy production, distribution, and peak demand periods.
Best Practices and Tips
- When working with weather data in Excel, data accuracy and reliability are two very important factors. Choose an API that retrieves weather data from reliable sources.
- Regularly update your Excel weather data to reflect the latest forecasts and conditions.
- To improve performance with large datasets, consider breaking down data into manageable chunks, using Excel’s built-in functions efficiently.
- You can also use techniques like data filtering and summarization.
- For further learning and exploration, use resources such as online tutorials, forums, and documentation provided by weather API providers.
- Engage with communities of meteorologists, analysts, and Excel users to exchange best practices and tips for maximizing the utility of weather data in Excel.
Conclusion
By integrating weather forecast data into Excel, businesses can access accurate weather forecast data instantly. This data helps them make the right decisions, optimize their operations, and mitigate risks.
With the capabilities of weather forecast APIs like weatherstack, users can easily integrate real-time, historical, and weather forecast data into Excel. In this article, we’ve provided a step-by-step tutorial on getting weather forecast data into Excel.
We encourage you to explore and experiment while improving your decision-making skills with weatherstack. Therefore, don’t wait any further and get your weatherstack subscription today!
FAQs
How do I create a weather chart in Excel?
- Get weather data in Excel. For example, you can use a reliable weather API like weatherstack to get weather data in Excel quickly and easily.
- Select the data you want to include in your chart.
- Go to the Insert tab in Excel. Then, in the Charts group, choose the type of chart you want to create.
- Add a chart title, data labels, etc.
How do I get weather data from CSV?
To get weather data from a CSV file, you can use a programming language like Python. Python has powerful libraries for handling CSV files and data analysis.
How do you collect data for weather forecasting?
You can use a reliable weather API that provides accurate weather forecast data. Weatherstack is an example of such an API.