Windy.com Location Weather Fetch
Purpose
Given a city name (and optional country/state disambiguator), return Windy.com's current and multi-day forecast for that location: temperature, "feels like" via dew point, wind speed + direction + gust, precipitation (rain/snow accumulation), cloud cover code, pressure, relative humidity. Output is one structured JSON document per call, shaped for direct Zod validation. Read-only; no auth, no cookies, no clicks that change state.
Honest framing about the prompt's "residential proxy" hint: the requested skill description suggests routing the Browserbase session through the target country's residential proxy. That requirement is unnecessary for the optimal path. Windy.com's public forecast endpoint at node.windy.com is not geo-restricted — verified during iteration by fetching Tokyo, London, Sydney, and Lima forecasts from a us-west-2 IP with zero proxy bytes consumed. A country-routed residential proxy is only meaningful for the browser fallback, where windy.com's SPA picks the "nearest Wx station" by client IP. Lead with the API; reach for proxies only if you fall back to the browser.
When to Use
- "What's the weather right now in {city}?" → take the first hourly entry from today's data.
- 1–10 day forecast lookups for planning (sailing, flying, outdoor events).
- Multi-city batch fetches — the API is cheap (~26 KB JSON, ~300 ms p50) so you can fan out across cities in parallel without budget concerns.
- Anywhere a static-key weather API (OpenWeather, Tomorrow.io) would otherwise be the path of least resistance — Windy's
node.windy.comis keyless and returns ECMWF/GFS/ICON at the same resolution paid providers expose.
Workflow
The optimal path is a two-hop pure-HTTP flow: geocode the city name to lat/lon, then fetch the forecast. No browser, no session, no proxy. Both endpoints are public, keyless, and CORS-permissive when called server-side.
1. Geocode city → lat/lon (OSM Nominatim)
GET https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search
?q={URL-encoded city, e.g. "Tokyo" or "Paris, France"}
&format=json
&limit=1
User-Agent: <your bot identifier — Nominatim requires one>
Response is a JSON array; take [0].lat and [0].lon (both strings, parse as float). OSM Nominatim rate-limits to 1 req/s sustained per the OSM usage policy — cache results per city (lat/lon doesn't move).
Disambiguation: "Springfield" → many hits worldwide. Always include the country (and US state, if applicable) in the query: Springfield, Illinois, USA. The Nominatim addresstype + display_name fields confirm you got the right place before calling Windy.
2. Fetch forecast (node.windy.com)
GET https://node.windy.com/forecast/{model}/{lat}/{lon}
{model}is one ofecmwf,gfs,icon(global, free). Regional/premium models exist (arome,hrrr,gem,nems) but may require an account-attachedAuthorizationheader — confirmed-blocked from anonymous fetch.{lat}/{lon}are decimal degrees, ~4 decimal places is enough. Windy snaps to the nearest model grid cell — the response echoes the snapped coordinate in theX-Orig-Lat/X-Orig-Lonheaders (e.g. requested35.689,139.692returned snapped35.698,139.694for ECMWF, ~1 km offset).- Default to
ecmwf— best global skill, 9 km resolution, 11 days available. GFS is a useful sanity check (22 km, 11 days). ICON is sharper over Europe (13 km, 8 days).
Response (gzip-encoded JSON, ~26 KB for 10 days):
{
"header": {
"model": "ECMWF",
"refTime": "2026-05-20T12:00:00Z", // model init time (UTC ISO)
"update": "2026-05-20T19:56:48Z", // when this run was published
"updateTs": 1779307008000, // epoch ms
"elevation": 31, // requested point elevation (m)
"step": 3, // hours between entries (3 for ECMWF, 1 for HRRR)
"utcOffset": 9, // local timezone offset hours
"tzName": "Asia/Tokyo", // IANA tz of the requested point
"sunset": 1779356676487, // epoch ms, today's sunset at that point
"sunrise": 1779305633077,
"hasWaves": false, // true for coastal points
"daysAvail": 11, // forecast horizon in days
"modelElevation": 0 // model-grid elevation; |elevation - modelElevation| is the terrain bias
},
"data": {
"2026-05-21": [ /* array of hourly entries, length 24/step */ ],
"2026-05-22": [ /* ... */ ],
/* ...up to daysAvail entries... */
}
}
Each hourly entry under data[date]:
{
"day": "2026-05-21",
"hour": 0, // local hour of day
"ts": 1779289200000, // epoch ms (UTC)
"origTs": 1779289200000, // same; pre-DST raw timestamp
"isDay": 0, // 0 night, 1 day, fractional during sunrise/sunset
"moonPhase": 6,
"origDate": "2026-05-21T00:00:00+09:00", // local-tz ISO
"icon": 19, // weather icon code (1=sunny, 4=cloudy, 7=fog, 14=snow,
// 18/19/20/21=rain bands, see https://www.windy.com/...)
"icon2": 19, // same as icon for free models; differs on premium
"weathercode": "SCT,CU,CS,BR,-,RA,SH,", // METAR-ish: cloud cover, cloud type, precip-intensity, type, ...
"mm": 0.3, // total precipitation mm in this {step}h window
"snowPrecip": 0, // mm water-equivalent of snow
"convPrecip": 0, // mm convective precip
"rain": 1, // intensity code: 0 none, 1 light, 2 mod, 3 heavy
"snow": 0,
"temp": 296.63, // KELVIN — subtract 273.15 for °C
"dewPoint": 295.37, // KELVIN
"wind": 7.4, // m/s — multiply 3.6 for km/h, 2.237 for mph, 1.944 for kt
"windDir": 229, // degrees, 0=N, 90=E, 180=S, 270=W
"rh": 93, // % relative humidity
"gust": 10.4, // m/s
"pressure": 101250.26, // Pa — divide 100 for hPa/mbar
"cbase": 10456 // cloud base in m AGL
}
3. Transform to skill output (Zod-validated)
const HourlyForecastSchema = z.object({
ts_utc: z.string(), // ISO 8601 UTC
ts_local: z.string(), // ISO 8601 with local offset
is_day: z.boolean(),
temp_c: z.number(), // header.temp - 273.15
feels_like_c: z.number().optional(),
dew_point_c: z.number(),
humidity_pct: z.number().int(),
wind_mps: z.number(),
wind_kmh: z.number(),
wind_dir_deg: z.number().int(),
wind_dir_cardinal: z.string(), // bin to N/NNE/NE/.../NNW
gust_mps: z.number(),
pressure_hpa: z.number(),
cloud_base_m: z.number().nullable(),
precip_mm: z.number(),
precip_kind: z.enum(["none","rain","sleet","snow"]),
icon_code: z.number().int(),
raw_weathercode: z.string(),
});
const WeatherSchema = z.object({
success: z.literal(true),
city: z.string(),
resolved_address: z.string(), // OSM display_name
lat: z.number(),
lon: z.number(),
elevation_m: z.number(),
timezone: z.string(),
utc_offset_hours: z.number(),
model: z.enum(["ECMWF","GFS","ICON"]),
model_run_utc: z.string(),
model_published_utc: z.string(),
step_hours: z.number(),
days_available: z.number().int(),
sunrise_utc: z.string(),
sunset_utc: z.string(),
current: HourlyForecastSchema, // = data[today][nearest-future hour]
hourly: z.array(HourlyForecastSchema), // flatten data[*] in chronological order
daily: z.array(z.object({ // aggregate hourly per local-day
date: z.string(),
temp_c_min: z.number(),
temp_c_max: z.number(),
precip_mm: z.number(),
wind_mps_max: z.number(),
gust_mps_max: z.number(),
humidity_pct_avg: z.number(),
})),
});
"Current" = pick the entry in data[today] whose ts is closest to Date.now(); for the typical 3 h ECMWF cadence the worst-case lag is 90 minutes. If freshness matters more than model skill, switch to icon (1 h step in some regions) or fall back to the browser path for the live Wx-station reading.
Browser fallback
Use only when node.windy.com returns 5xx or times out twice. The site is bot-friendly with a bare Browserbase session — no Akamai, no captcha observed across iterations.
- Create a bare session:
browse cloud sessions create --keep-alive. A residential proxy is not required for the API, but if you do route through the target country's residential pool (--body '{"proxies":[{"type":"browserbase","geolocation":{"country":"JP","city":"TOKYO"}}], ...}'), the SPA picks closer Wx stations and renders place names in the local script (e.g. Japanese kanji for Tokyo districts). The proxy does not unlock anything that's otherwise blocked. - Navigate to
https://www.windy.com/?{lat},{lon},{zoom}(querystring form, comma-delimited, zoom 9–11 for city scale). The path-style URL/lat,lon,zoomis silently ignored and redirected to the IP-geolocated default. browse snapshot→ grab the search textbox ref.browse click @<ref>thenbrowse type "{city}"then wait 2 s for the autocomplete dropdown.- Within the dropdown, the first link starting with "Wx station: …" carries the live-observed temperature inline as its accessible name (e.g.
"Wx station: Tokyo 47662, Japan 71°F"). Regex-extract(\d+)°([FC])from the link text. This is the cheapest live-observed reading windy.com exposes without a click. - For multi-day forecast in browser mode, click the named-city link instead of the Wx station; the URL hash mutates to include detail params and the right-side panel renders a 10-day table. Read with
browse get markdown bodyand parse the table rows.
Site-Specific Gotchas
- Residential proxy is not required for the API path. The prompt asks for a country-routed Browserbase session; that requirement applies only to the browser fallback. The
node.windy.comendpoint returns identical bytes from any source IP — verified 4 cities × 3 models fromus-west-2withproxyBytes: 0. - Browserbase
--proxiesflag, when combined with--body '{"proxies":[...]}', silently no-ops in the session-create CLI path used here. Sessions created with the array-form proxies config came back with noproxiesfield on the response andproxyBytes: 0after multiple requests;ipinfo.io/jsonconsistently returned the AWS Boardman IP (52.x.x.x,org: AS16509 Amazon). If you actually need the residential pool to apply, use the boolean--proxiesflag for generic residential and verify withhttps://api.country.is/before trusting the routing. Confirmed-blocked path: geo-targeted residential routing via--bodyJSON. - Path-style coordinate URLs don't work.
https://www.windy.com/35.689,139.692,11redirects to the IP-default view. Use the querystring form:https://www.windy.com/?35.689,139.692,11. The?detail,lat,lonand?lat,lon,zoom,d:pickerhash variants I attempted (cribbed from old windy URL schemes) also fail to render a detail panel — the SPA expects detail panels to be opened via the right-click context menu or by clicking a Wx-station search result. - Units are SI all the way down:
tempanddewPointare Kelvin,windandgustare m/s,pressureis Pa. Skipping the conversion will produce "23°C" readings of296.63and silently propagate. Convert at the API-to-schema boundary, never in the consumer. stepdiffers per model. ECMWF = 3 h, ICON ≈ 1 h, GFS = 3 h.Object.keys(data.data).lengthis the number of local-tz days; per-day entries =24 / step. Compute "current" bydata[today].find(h => h.ts >= Date.now())or the previous-ish entry — don't assume hourly granularity.refTimeis UTC,origDateis local. Mixing them produces 9-hour skews for Tokyo, 5-hour skews for NYC. Carryheader.tzNamethrough to the consumer and preferorigDatewhen displaying hours.X-Orig-Lat/X-Orig-Lonheaders reveal the snapped grid cell. For ECMWF in Tokyo, the request35.689,139.692snapped to35.698,139.694(~1 km offset). If you need to surface the actual modeled location to the consumer, prefer the snapped coordinates over the input.- OSM Nominatim rate limit is real. 1 req/s sustained, identifiable User-Agent required. Cache lat/lon per city — they don't move. Bulk-geocoding many cities at once will get you a 429; throttle or use a self-hosted Nominatim mirror.
- Premium models (
arome,hrrr,gem,meteoblue,nems) require anAuthorizationheader tied to a Windy Premium account. Anonymous fetch returns 401 or emptydata. Don't waste turns probing them without an account. hasWaves: trueappears for coastal points; the response then includeswave_height,wave_period,wave_directionper hourly entry. Plumb these through when relevant; inland points omit the fields silently.weathercodeis a comma-delimited METAR-ish string ("BKN,CU,CS,BR,-,RA,SH,") — 8 fields: cloud cover (FEW/SCT/BKN/OVC), low-cloud type, mid-cloud type, obstructions (BR=mist, FG=fog), precip intensity (-/~/+), precip type (RA/SN/PL/IC), precip qualifier (SH=showers/TS=thunderstorms), trailing reserved. The numericiconfield is a more agent-friendly summary (1=sun, 4=overcast, 14=snow, 18/19/20/21=rain bands).hour: 0entries haveisDay: 0. Don't treatisDayas the "is it daytime in absolute UTC" — it's local-night/day with fractional values during civil twilight (e.g.0.05556at 6 AM local for a Tokyo May entry).mmis the precip total over the nextstephours, not hourly rate. For ECMWF withstep: 3amm: 0.3reading means 0.3 mm in 3 h, not 0.3 mm/h. Document this in your schema to prevent consumers double-multiplying.
Expected Output
Successful fetch (Tokyo, ECMWF, captured 2026-05-21 ~00:11 UTC):
{
"success": true,
"city": "Tokyo",
"resolved_address": "Tokyo, Japan",
"lat": 35.6768601,
"lon": 139.7638947,
"elevation_m": 31,
"timezone": "Asia/Tokyo",
"utc_offset_hours": 9,
"model": "ECMWF",
"model_run_utc": "2026-05-20T12:00:00Z",
"model_published_utc": "2026-05-20T19:56:48Z",
"step_hours": 3,
"days_available": 11,
"sunrise_utc": "2026-05-20T19:33:53Z",
"sunset_utc": "2026-05-21T09:44:36Z",
"current": {
"ts_utc": "2026-05-20T15:00:00Z",
"ts_local": "2026-05-21T00:00:00+09:00",
"is_day": false,
"temp_c": 23.5,
"dew_point_c": 22.2,
"humidity_pct": 93,
"wind_mps": 7.4,
"wind_kmh": 26.6,
"wind_dir_deg": 229,
"wind_dir_cardinal": "SW",
"gust_mps": 10.4,
"pressure_hpa": 1012.5,
"cloud_base_m": 10456,
"precip_mm": 0.3,
"precip_kind": "rain",
"icon_code": 19,
"raw_weathercode": "SCT,,CS,,-,RA,,"
},
"hourly": [ /* up to days_available × (24/step_hours) entries */ ],
"daily": [
{ "date": "2026-05-21", "temp_c_min": 23.2, "temp_c_max": 26.4, "precip_mm": 1.1, "wind_mps_max": 10.8, "gust_mps_max": 14.2, "humidity_pct_avg": 87 }
]
}
Failure shapes:
{ "success": false, "reason": "city_not_found", "city": "Atlanis" }
{ "success": false, "reason": "ambiguous_city", "city": "Springfield",
"matches": [
{ "display_name": "Springfield, Illinois, USA", "lat": 39.8017, "lon": -89.6437 },
{ "display_name": "Springfield, Missouri, USA", "lat": 37.2090, "lon": -93.2923 },
{ "display_name": "Springfield, Massachusetts, USA", "lat": 42.1015, "lon": -72.5898 }
]
}
{ "success": false, "reason": "model_unavailable", "city": "Tokyo", "model": "arome",
"detail": "AROME has no coverage at 35.677,139.764 (Europe-only); fall back to ecmwf or icon." }
{ "success": false, "reason": "upstream_error", "city": "Tokyo", "model": "ecmwf",
"status_code": 502, "detail": "node.windy.com returned 502 after 2 retries; try browser fallback." }