Check the Weather in Your Terminal with wttr.in

Want a quick way to check the weather without opening a browser or installing any apps? If you're a Linux user who lives in the terminal, wttr.in is a clever little tool that gives you weather forecasts directly from the command line.

It's lightweight, works with just curl or wget, and supports a variety of custom formats. Whether you're building a Conky weather widget or just want to stay updated before heading out, wttr.in is a reliable solution.

Basic Usage

To check your local weather, simply open a terminal and type:

curl wttr.in

You’ll get a nice text-based weather forecast, complete with temperature, wind, and condition icons. If you want to check a specific location, just add the city name:

curl wttr.in/london

wttr.in output

Customize the Output

wttr.in allows you to tweak the format to make it more minimal or more detailed. For example:

curl wttr.in/yogyakarta?format=3

That will return something like: Yogyakarta: 🌤 +30°C

Here's a list of some useful format codes:

• %l – Location
• %c – Weather condition
• %t – Temperature
• %w – Wind

Example combining all of them:

curl 'wttr.in/?format=%l:+%c+%t+%w'

Output: YourCity: ☀️ +31°C ↘ 10 km/h

Use in Scripts and Conky

Because wttr.in works with plain text, it’s easy to integrate into your Conky widgets or bash scripts. You can pipe the output into variables, log files, or even use it with jq for more complex setups.

curl -s 'wttr.in/yogyakarta?format=3' > ~/.cache/weather.txt

Then read it in Conky using cat ~/.cache/weather.txt

Bonus Tip

You can also use wttr.in in a web browser! Just visit:

https://wttr.in

Or for specific cities: https://wttr.in/bandung

For more detailed documentation and advanced usage examples — including localization, metrics, terminal options, and integration with other tools — visit the official project page on GitHub:

https://github.com/chubin/wttr.in

Final Thoughts

wttr.in is a brilliant example of how powerful and elegant the command line can be. Whether you’re scripting your own widgets or just want quick weather info, this tool deserves a place in your daily Linux workflow.

No installation, no API keys — just curl and go.