Get Live Weather Desktop Notifications Using Python

In this article, we are going to build a cross-platform live weather desktop notification using Python. The script will take a city name, fetch its live weather details like temperature and wind speed from the Open-Meteo API, and display them as a desktop notification.

By the end of this article, you will have a working Python program that:

• Automatically finds the latitude and longitude of the given city.
• Fetches real-time weather information without requiring an API key.
• Displays the weather details directly on your desktop as a notification.

Modules Needed

In this script, we are going to use these libraries libraries

• requests: For sending HTTP requests and fetching data from APIs.

pip install requests

• plyer: For creating desktop notifications across all major operating systems.

pip install win10toast

Approach:

1. Get the latitude and longitude of a city using the Open-Meteo Geocoding API.
2. Fetch the current weather data using the Open-Meteo Weather API.
3. Extract temperature and wind speed from the API response.
4. Show the result as a desktop notification.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Step 1: Import the Required Modules

import requests
from plyer import notification

Step 2: Create an object of ToastNotifier class.

We’ll use the Open-Meteo Geocoding API to convert a city name into its latitude and longitude. We can change the city name to our liking.

city = "Delhi"
geo_url = "https://geocoding-api.open-meteo.com/v1/search"
geo_params = {"name": city, "count": 1}
geo_res = requests.get(geo_url, params=geo_params).json()

Explanation:

• geo_params: Dictionary with search parameters (name of the city, count as number of results).
• requests.get(geo_url, params=geo_params): Sends a GET request to the geocoding API with parameters.
• .json(): Converts the API response from JSON format into a Python dictionary.

Step 3: Fetch Current Weather Data

If the city exists, we’ll use its coordinates to get temperature and wind speed from the Open-Meteo Weather API.

if "results" in geo_res:
    lat = geo_res["results"][0]["latitude"]
    lon = geo_res["results"][0]["longitude"]

    weather_url = "https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast"
    weather_params = {
        "latitude": lat,
        "longitude": lon,
        "current_weather": True
    }
    weather_res = requests.get(weather_url, params=weather_params).json()
    
    # Printing the fetched weather info, we can remove this step later
    print(weather_res)

Output: We can see the raw data that we fetched in the terminal.

Explanation:

• lat & lon: Extract latitude and longitude from the API response.
• weather_params: Contains coordinates and tells API to return only current weather.
• requests.get(weather_url, params=weather_params): Fetches weather details for the city.

Step 4: Display the Notification

Once we have the weather data, we’ll show it on the desktop.

    if "current_weather" in weather_res:
        temp = weather_res["current_weather"]["temperature"]
        wind = weather_res["current_weather"]["windspeed"]
        weather_info = f"{city}: {temp}°C, Wind {wind} km/h"

        print("Weather:", weather_info)

        notification.notify(
            title="Weather Update",
            message=weather_info,
            timeout=5
        )
    else:
        print("Weather data not found")
else:
    print("City not found")

Explanation:

• temp & wind: Extract temperature and wind speed from the API response.
• weather_info: Format weather data as a readable string.
• notification.notify(...): Shows the weather info in a desktop popup.
• timeout=5: Notification stays visible for 5 seconds.

Complete Code

import requests
from plyer import notification

# 1. Get coordinates from city name
city = "Delhi"
geo_url = "https://geocoding-api.open-meteo.com/v1/search"
geo_params = {"name": city, "count": 1}
geo_res = requests.get(geo_url, params=geo_params).json()

if "results" in geo_res:
    lat = geo_res["results"][0]["latitude"]
    lon = geo_res["results"][0]["longitude"]

    # 2. Get weather data
    weather_url = "https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast"
    weather_params = {
        "latitude": lat,
        "longitude": lon,
        "current_weather": True
    }
    weather_res = requests.get(weather_url, params=weather_params).json()

    if "current_weather" in weather_res:
        temp = weather_res["current_weather"]["temperature"]
        wind = weather_res["current_weather"]["windspeed"]
        weather_info = f"{city}: {temp}°C, Wind {wind} km/h"

        print("Weather:", weather_info)

        # 3. Cross-platform notification
        notification.notify(
            title="Weather Update",
            message=weather_info,
            timeout=5
        )
    else:
        print("Weather data not found")
else:
    print("City not found")

Let's run the script to get the current weather information for "New York" city:

Output:

Let's try to fetch info for "Delhi" city.

Output: