Overview

The Weather Information Server project is designed to demonstrate the principles of client-server architecture while integrating external APIs. The goal is to provide a user-friendly web application that fetches and displays real-time weather data for any city using the OpenWeatherMap API. This project aims to enhance my understanding of web development, networking, and API integration.

The software consists of a server backend built using FastAPI and a client frontend using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Users can input a city name into the web interface to fetch weather details such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, and a brief description of current conditions.

The purpose of this software is to explore how client-server communication works in practice and to refine my skills in designing modular, scalable, and user-friendly applications.

Software Demo Video

Network Communication

The architecture used in this project is a client-server model. The client, implemented as a web-based interface, communicates with the server through HTTP requests.

The server utilizes TCP for reliable communication and listens on port 8000 by default. The client sends HTTP POST requests with JSON payloads to the server for weather data retrieval. The server responds with JSON-encoded weather information.

Example JSON request from client:

{
    "city": "London"
}

Example JSON reply from server:

{
    "city": "London",
    "temperature": 68.0,
    "description": "clear sky",
    "humidity": 45,
    "wind_speed": 5.5
}

Development Environment

The software was developed using the following tools and technologies:

• Programming Language: Python 3.11
• Web Framework: FastAPI
• Frontend: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Libraries:
  • httpx for asynchronous HTTP requests
  • pydantic for data validation
  • uvicorn as the ASGI server

Development was carried out in a Python virtual environment to manage dependencies.

Useful Websites

• FastAPI Documentation
• OpenWeatherMap API Documentation
• Python AsyncIO Guide
• MDN Web Docs: Fetch API

Future Work

• Enhance the user interface to include more styling and interactive elements.
• Add support for weather forecasts in addition to current conditions.
• Implement user authentication for personalized weather dashboards.
• Introduce error handling for invalid city names directly on the client side.
• Expand support for additional weather metrics like air quality or UV index.