Your First Python Project: Building a Weather App from Scratch

Ready to build your first real Python project? This tutorial will guide you through creating a weather application that fetches real weather data and displays it beautifully in the terminal.

What You'll Learn

• Making HTTP requests with the requests library
• Working with JSON data from APIs
• Error handling and user input
• Formatting terminal output

Step 1: Project Setup

# Create project folder
mkdir weather-app && cd weather-app

# Create virtual environment
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # Mac/Linux
# venv\Scripts\activate   # Windows

# Install dependencies
pip install requests

Step 2: The Main Code

import requests
import sys

def get_weather(city):
    """Fetch weather data for a city."""
    # Using wttr.in - a free weather API (no key needed!)
    url = f"https://wttr.in/{city}?format=j1"

    try:
        response = requests.get(url, timeout=10)
        response.raise_for_status()
        return response.json()
    except requests.RequestException as e:
        print(f"Error fetching weather: {e}")
        return None

def display_weather(data, city):
    """Display weather information in a nice format."""
    current = data["current_condition"][0]

    temp_c = current["temp_C"]
    temp_f = current["temp_F"]
    humidity = current["humidity"]
    description = current["weatherDesc"][0]["value"]
    wind_speed = current["windspeedKmph"]
    feels_like = current["FeelsLikeC"]

    print(f"""
    Weather for {city.title()}
    {"=" * 35}
    Description:  {description}
    Temperature:  {temp_c}C / {temp_f}F
    Feels Like:   {feels_like}C
    Humidity:     {humidity}%
    Wind Speed:   {wind_speed} km/h
    {"=" * 35}
    """)

def main():
    print("Python Weather App")
    print("-" * 20)

    while True:
        city = input("Enter city name (or 'quit' to exit): ").strip()

        if city.lower() == "quit":
            print("Goodbye!")
            break

        if not city:
            print("Please enter a valid city name.")
            continue

        print(f"Fetching weather for {city}...")
        data = get_weather(city)

        if data:
            display_weather(data, city)
        else:
            print("Could not retrieve weather data.")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Step 3: Running the App

python weather.py

Sample Output

Python Weather App
--------------------
Enter city name (or 'quit' to exit): London

Fetching weather for London...

    Weather for London
    ===================================
    Description:  Partly cloudy
    Temperature:  18C / 64F
    Feels Like:   17C
    Humidity:     65%
    Wind Speed:   15 km/h
    ===================================

Bonus: Add a 3-Day Forecast

def display_forecast(data):
    """Show 3-day forecast."""
    print("  3-Day Forecast:")
    for day in data["weather"][:3]:
        date = day["date"]
        max_temp = day["maxtempC"]
        min_temp = day["mintempC"]
        desc = day["hourly"][4]["weatherDesc"][0]["value"]
        print(f"  {date}: {desc}, {min_temp}-{max_temp}C")

What's Next?

Once you have this working, try these enhancements:

1. Add colored output with the colorama library
2. Save favorite cities to a file
3. Build a GUI version with tkinter
4. Add weather alerts and notifications