Weather Forecaster 🌤️

Weather Forecaster is a simple web application that retrieves and displays the current weather forecast based on a provided address. Powered by OpenWeather API and Geocodio API, it provides real-time weather updates and caches results for optimized performance.

🖥️ Live Demo

A live version of the site is deployed on Heroku:

• https://weather-forecaster-116cd0fccb32.herokuapp.com

🚀 Features

• Search Weather by Address: Enter any address (U.S. or Canada) to get the current weather details, including temperature, description, and icon
• Error Handling: Handles invalid addresses gracefully with user-friendly messages
• User Interface with Bootstrap: Clean and responsive design powered by Bootstrap for better user experience
• API Usage Limits:
  • Geocodio API: Allows 2,500 requests per day and 1,000 requests per minute (source)
  • OpenWeather API: Allows 1,000,000 requests per month and 60 requests per minute (source)
• Caching for Efficiency: Forecast data is cached for 30 minutes based on zip codes to optimize performance and ensure that repeated requests do not unnecessarily consume OpenWeather API calls
  • In production, Redis-backed caching ensures consistent performance and scalability across multiple workers
  • In development, caching is performed in-memory for simplicity

🛠️ Technologies Used

• Framework: Ruby on Rails
• APIs:
  • OpenWeather API
  • Geocodio API
• Frontend: Bootstrap CSS for styling
• Deployment: Heroku
• Cache Backend:
  • Production: Redis Cloud (Heroku Add-on) (30MB)
  • Development: In-memory caching (64MB)

📦 Installation

1. Install dependencies

   bundle install
   

2. Create API Keys

   Sign up for free accounts at:

   • Geocodio
   • OpenWeather

   Generate API keys from each service after signing up.

3. Set up environment variables

   Create a .env file with the following variables:

   GEOCODIO_API_KEY=your_geocodio_api_key
   OPENWEATHER_API_KEY=your_openweather_api_key
   

4. Run the server

   rails server
   

5. Access the application

   Visit http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

🧪 Running Tests

This project uses RSpec for testing. Tests can be run with the following command:

bundle exec rspec

⚙️ Usage

1. Search for Weather:
   • On the homepage, enter an address (e.g., One Apple Park Way, Cupertino, CA 95014) or a more general location (e.g., California or Toronto, Canada).
   • Note: The address can be either specific or broad (e.g., a street address, city, or state). However, it must be within the US or Canada, as Geocodio only supports these regions.
   • Click Get Forecast to view the weather details.
   
2. Caching:
   • Results are cached for 30 minutes to enhance speed and limit API requests.
   • If you search the same address within the cache period, the app will display the cached result.
   
3. Error Handling:
   • If an invalid address is entered, an error message will be displayed asking the user to try again.