weatherCLI

weatherCLI is a Linux command line UI based application that shows the user the weather and sun information from the National Weather Service written in Python. Because of this, weatherCLI is only available in the United States, and its territories, However, the sun calculation is available for most of the places that share the same timezones as the United States, examples: Canada, Mexico and parts of western South America.

Application for generating weather using data from NOAA

https://www.noaa.gov/
https://weather.gov/

API for sun information from Astronomical Applications Department

https://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/api
https://aa.usno.navy.mil/api/

Geocoding for latitude and longitude using data from OpenStreetMap

https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/
https://openstreetmap.org/copyright

What kind of data can the application show:

weather warnings(eg: Frost Advisory, Winter Storm Warning or Severe Thunderstorm Warning)

Sun data:

• Sunrise
• Sunset
• Solar noon

Live data from the location’s nearest weather station:

• Temperature
• Humidity
• Visibility
• Dew point
• Name of station
• Wind direction
• Sustained wind speed
• Wind gusts (will show NA knots if no gusts)
• Local station url if you want to get more information:

Temperature graphs:

• Daily low
• Daily high

12 hour Precipitation probability graphs

How does weatherCLI get its data?

The National Weather Service allows you to generate XML files showing weather data from a specific longitude and latitude. This program reads those XML files and presents them to the user as readable data. To get the sun positions, the program uses the US Navy's API for getting sun info expressed in json, and prints the result out on terminal.

Supported operating systems

OS	Supported?
Debian	✅
Ubuntu	✅
Fedora	✅
Arch	✅
Mint	🔶
Pop OS	🔶
EndeavourOS	🔶
Windows	❌

✅: Supported
🔶: Untested
❌: Broken

Download

from installer:

1. Dependencys: wget

Can be installed from almost all package managers:

Debian/Ubuntu/Mint:

sudo apt install wget

Arch:

pacman -S wget

Fedora

sudo dnf install wget

*may already be installed

2. download installer script:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/beee33/weatherCLI/main/installer.sh 

3. run script:

sudo sh installer.sh

Only run python file instead:

1. download repo and download dependencies

Follow Build from source instructuions until the end of step 4

2. Run python fille

python3 main.py

Build from source:

1. Install git

Instructions to install git are on: Git's website however you can just use:

Debian/Ubuntu/Mint:

sudo apt install git

Fedora

sudo dnf install git

2. download repo

git clone "https://github.com/beee33/weatherCLI"

Configure venv

3. cd into weatherCLI directory

cd weatherCLI

4a. Recommended: use python venv

Create new virtual enviroment using python's venv

python3 -m venv <name>

Enter venv

source <name>/bin/activate

*Note: if venv works, your shell should have (<name>) in prompt Install dependencys

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

4b. Not recommended: run without venv

❗ some Operating Systems eg: Debian, dont like you to install packages in the default python environment, as it may override system packages that are needed. I have bricked a VM by doing this.

Install dependencys

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

5. install pyinstaller

pip install pyinstaller

or

python3 -m pip install pyinstaller

*Note, you may have to use a virtual enviroment for some systems. You can use something like pyenv to create instances of python with diffrent versions: https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv
For this program I would reccomend using python 3.10, as that is what version this program is written for. If not, try to rename all instances of it to your python version

6. compile to standalone binary if you use venv

This adds the new venv site packages path to pyinstaller, so it can use it. You should replace python3.10 with your python version eg python3.11

pyinstaller main.py --onefile --paths "<name>/lib/python3.10/site-packages"

Leave virtual enviroment

deactivate

7. compile to standalone binary if you dont use venv

pyinstaller main.py --onefile

8. Copy the new binary to the bin directory so it can be accessed by users

sudo cp dist/main /usr/bin/weatherCLI

9. Change perms so that any user can access it,but not modify it's code

sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/weatherCLI

10. make the data directory

sudo mkdir /etc/weatherCLI

11a. change access to all users

sudo chmod 777 -R /etc/weatherCLI

*note this directory and its subdirectorys is intended to be accessible for all users

11b. if you only want people with sudo perms to access it:

sudo chmod 711 -R /etc/weatherCLI

potental problems with compiling

if you get the error: "[PYI-1890462:ERROR] Failed to load Python shared library '/tmp/_MEIWYQO9N/libpython3.10.so': dlopen: /tmp/_MEIWYQO9N/libpython3.10.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

This command fixes that so pyinstaller knows python's path. This should be replaced with your python version and the temp directory may be diffrent, I was using python 3.10.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/lib/python3.10

How does weatherCLI know the location?

WeahterCLI uses OpenStreetMaps’s geocoding API to get latitude and longitude positions from user input. It converts the latitude and longitude into a url that has the XML data. This url is stored in “/etc/weatherCLI/<towns/zipcode/places>/<queryname>/url.txt” an example is: “/etc/weatherCLI/towns/Boston\ MA/url.txt”. The data for the sun positions are only calculated once per day per location, and the output is put in a file so that the user doesn't have to recalculate the same sun data for each day. All of the urls and sun data is stored in “/etc/weatherCLI/”

Configurable to the data you want to see:

weatherCLItypes.mp4

Calculates sunrise and sunset:

weatherCLIsun.mp4

Can get weather from zipcode, town/city name or point of intrest(ie: schools, goverment buildings and airports):

weatherCLIplaces.mp4

Can Combine multiple tags:

weatherCLImulttypes.mp4

Inbuilt documentation:

weatherCLIhelp.mp4

*video only edited to speed up typing (program running time is at real time speed)