Weather Widget with Open-Meteo API

Date: 2026-04-12 Type: Build Log

Context

The Control Center dashboard needed local weather data to help decide when to run tick-dragging missions — temperature and humidity directly affect tick activity. We chose Open-Meteo because it's free, requires no API key, and supports elevation-corrected temperatures (important at 2000ft in the Catskills).

What Changed

Evaluated free weather APIs (Open-Meteo, OpenWeatherMap, Weather.gov, Visual Crossing). Selected Open-Meteo for zero auth overhead and elevation support.
Built src/lib/weather.ts — a typed client that fetches current conditions + next 8 hourly forecasts from Open-Meteo. Includes a WMO weather code → label/emoji mapping table.
Built src/components/weather-widget.tsx — compact card (max-w-xs, square-ish) showing current temp/conditions/humidity/wind, with a horizontally scrollable 8-hour forecast strip. Auto-refreshes every 15 minutes.
Added the widget to the Control Center page between Rover Live and the Stats grid.
Documented both API call patterns (current conditions and hourly forecast) in docs/articles/weather-api.md, including full query params, response shapes, and the WMO code reference table.

Files Modified

src/lib/weather.ts — New. Weather fetch client with types and WMO code map
src/components/weather-widget.tsx — New. Compact weather card component
src/app/control-center/page.tsx — Added <WeatherWidget /> import and placement
docs/articles/weather-api.md — New. API documentation for both call patterns

Key Takeaways

Open-Meteo uses lat/lon (42.18, -74.53 for zip 12444) with an elevation=610 param that adjusts temperature to actual altitude rather than interpolated grid elevation
The API returns hourly arrays indexed from midnight — to get "next 8 hours" you find the current hour index and slice from there
Request forecast_days=2 to cover late-night queries that would roll past midnight
No rate limit key needed; they ask to stay under ~10k calls/day (our 15-min refresh is ~96/day)