One of the most common needs and use of weather information is to stay on top of breaking severe weather events. In a previous post, we explored using the NWS API to retrieve the current forecast for a specific location. Let’s walk through how you would retrieve any active weather alerts for your area.

Many APIs that provide location-specific information require information like an address or geographical coordinates to provide the correct data. Some APIs specifically require longitude and latitude coordinates for successful calls. How do you get that information for a specific location? In the past, it has not been easy to find, but many services now provide geocoding. I’ll share a sample using an API that Nominatim/OpenStreetMap exposes to retrieve the necessary information.

Although Python might be a 30-year-old programming language, it’s an easy language to adopt, provides a lot of capability through external libraries, and is supported on major operating systems like Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. Likewise, there are plenty of weather data sources to retrieve information like current conditions, forecasts, and severe weather alerts. The National Weather Service (NWS) API allows developers access to critical forecasts, alerts, observations, and other weather data. The API was designed with a cache-friendly approach that expires content based on the information lifecycle. All the information available via the API is open data and free to use.

While the Epson XP-15000 had been a fantastic printer for professional photo printing in the past, the ink cost associated with this reasonably priced large format printer can quickly become cost prohibitive. Coming in at $20-40/tank, This six-color tank setup gets expensive, especially considering I used it regularly for 13×19 prints. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

The Epson ET-8550 has been a great addition to the printing arsenal, especially with the Shaq-approved ink tanks! I used this to print photos from my Mac, and standard quality still produces perfectly usable and fast prints from Adobe Lightroom. I could easily print a 4×6 or 5×7 within 10-20 seconds.