Can Visual Crossing’s weather API help your business?

Business

When you think about ways to improve your business, you’re probably not thinking about the weather. 

But don’t you think it should be? It affects the way consumers behave (meaning: buy), so it’s definitely something that deserves some thought. Obviously, you can’t control it, but you can have enough data that will help you understand what it’s doing to your business.

That’s exactly what Visual Crossing has to offer.

The service gives you access to information on weather from around the world. 

That includes current conditions, forecasts, and more than 50 years of historical records. Instead of just checking what the weather will be like tomorrow, you can take that data and use it side by side with your business information.

Here’s an example for you:

Let’s say you run an online store and you notice that a certain product sells out every few months. 

A simple one-day weather shock event has been observed to negatively affect sales by approx. 10% over a 4-week period. – U.S. Federal Reserve Bank

Marketing could be a reason for that, sure, but weather could play a part as well. With historical data, you could compare those sales periods with temperature or rainfall (or any other conditions) and see if you can find a pattern.

And don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of information to work with. 

There are over 100 weather elements available, which include the familiar ones like temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind, snow, pressure, visibility, and cloud cover. Naturally, you don’t always take all of that. You can pick and choose what’s important to you right now and focus only on that.

The main service behind all this is the Timeline Weather API. 

An API can sound a bit technical and intimidating if you’ve never worked with one, but the basic idea is actually pretty simple. An API allows one piece of software to request information from another. In your case, that might be your dashboard or a website that can automatically request the weather information it needs.

The reason why Visual Crossing and its Timeline Weather API in particular are so practical is that you don’t need separate services for different periods. 

Everything’s available through the same system: historical weather, current conditions, and forecasts. 

That also gives you room to change the way you use the service later on (if needed, obviously). Perhaps all you need right now is the forecast for tomorrow, but a year from now, that could change. Maybe you’ll need to compare your business results with the past 5 years of weather. And since you already have access to both, you don’t have to search for yet another provider and start from scratch because it’s all part of the same service.

You’ll notice a lot of flexibility when it comes to choosing locations. You can search using addresses, ZIP codes, postal codes, latitude and longitude coordinates, and those are just some of the options. 

You can also choose specific dates or date ranges when you’re looking at historical information.

Once you have the data you need, it can be returned as either JSON or CSV. Generally speaking, JSON is more useful when the data is being fed straight into software, but if you’re working with spreadsheets or a database, you’ll want to opt for the CSV format.

Even if you’re not a developer, this can be an incredibly useful service for you because of the Weather Data Query Builder. It lets you search for and download weather information through a browser instead of manually creating API requests. 

That basically means that you don’t have to build an app to get value from the data. And as you can imagine, there are many ways a business can use this. 

Travel businesses have an obvious reason to keep an eye on the weather, but restaurants can use it to check the connection between weather and the number of customers, and agriculture and energy companies can go much deeper with weather information that’s specialized to their needs.

Quick Facts

  • Weather data available for locations worldwide
  • More than 50 years of historical weather records
  • Over 100 weather elements
  • REST-based Timeline Weather API
  • Data available in JSON and CSV
  • Locations can be searched by addresses, ZIP and postal codes, coordinates, etc.
  • Weather Data Query Builder available for accessing data without manually using the API
  • Up to 1,000 weather records per day included in the Free plan

Products and Services

  • Timeline Weather API – Main service for accessing historical weather, current conditions, forecasts, and other information related to weather.
  • Timeline LLX – A low-latency option. Used for applications that need forecast information quickly.
  • Climate and Statistical Data – Long-term weather statistics. Ideal for research and analysis.
  • Bulk and Scheduled Weather Data – Larger datasets and scheduled delivery for businesses that need weather information on a regular basis.
  • MCP Server – Allows compatible AI tools and applications to access weather data through the Model Context Protocol.