PowerShell Weather Forecast

A modern, feature-rich cross-platform PowerShell script that displays a 7-day weather forecast with automatic location detection and multi-language support.

Features

• ✅ Cross-Platform - Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS
• ✅ Smart Location Detection - Automatically detects OS and uses the appropriate location service
  • Windows: Windows Location Service
  • Linux: GeoClue2
  • macOS: CoreLocation (via whereami)
  • All: IP-based geolocation fallback
• ✅ Multi-Language Support - Extensible locale system with 7 languages included
• ✅ Comprehensive Weather Data - Temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and weather conditions
• ✅ Multiple Temperature Units - Celsius or Fahrenheit
• ✅ Beautiful Console UI - Clean, formatted output with weather emojis
• ✅ Free APIs - Uses Open-Meteo (no API key required) and OpenStreetMap Nominatim
• ✅ Rate Limiting - Respects API usage policies automatically
• ✅ Fallback Support - Built-in English descriptions if locale files are missing

Requirements

All Platforms

• PowerShell 7+ (recommended) or PowerShell 5.1+ (Windows only)
• Internet connection

Platform-Specific (Optional, for automatic location detection)

Windows:

• Windows 10/11 with Location Services enabled

Linux:

• GeoClue2 installed and running
• Install: sudo apt install geoclue-2.0 (Debian/Ubuntu) or sudo dnf install geoclue2 (Fedora)

macOS:

• whereami utility (optional but recommended)
• Install: brew install whereami

Installation

Windows

1. Install PowerShell (if not already installed):

   • Windows 10/11 comes with PowerShell 5.1
   • For PowerShell 7+: Download from GitHub

2. Clone or download the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/powershell-weather-forecast.git
cd powershell-weather-forecast

3. Enable Location Services (optional):

   • Go to Settings → Privacy → Location
   • Turn on "Location for this device"

4. Run the script:

.\WeatherForecast.ps1

Linux

1. Install PowerShell:

   Debian/Ubuntu:

   # Install prerequisites
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install -y wget apt-transport-https software-properties-common
   
   # Download and install PowerShell
   wget -q https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/$(lsb_release -rs)/packages-microsoft-prod.deb
   sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install -y powershell

   Fedora:

   # Add Microsoft repository
   sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc
   sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/microsoft.repo https://packages.microsoft.com/config/fedora/$(rpm -E %fedora)/prod.repo
   
   # Install PowerShell
   sudo dnf install -y powershell

   Arch Linux:

   yay -S powershell-bin
   # or
   paru -S powershell-bin

2. Install GeoClue2 (optional, for location detection):

   Debian/Ubuntu:

   sudo apt install geoclue-2.0

   Fedora:

   sudo dnf install geoclue2

   Arch Linux:

   sudo pacman -S geoclue

3. Clone or download the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/powershell-weather-forecast.git
cd powershell-weather-forecast

4. Make the script executable (optional):

chmod +x WeatherForecast.ps1

5. Run the script:

pwsh ./WeatherForecast.ps1

macOS

1. Install Homebrew (if not already installed):

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

2. Install PowerShell:

brew install powershell/tap/powershell

3. Install whereami (optional, for location detection):

brew install whereami

4. Clone or download the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/powershell-weather-forecast.git
cd powershell-weather-forecast

5. Run the script:

pwsh ./WeatherForecast.ps1

Quick Start (Any Platform)

If you just want to try it without location services:

# Skip system location and use IP-based detection
pwsh ./WeatherForecast.ps1 -SkipSystemLocation

# Or specify a city directly
pwsh ./WeatherForecast.ps1 -City "London"

Usage

Basic Usage

# Auto-detect location and show forecast
.\WeatherForecast.ps1

Advanced Usage

# Specific city
.\WeatherForecast.ps1 -City "Tokyo"

# Use Fahrenheit
.\WeatherForecast.ps1 -Units Fahrenheit

# Force specific language
.\WeatherForecast.ps1 -LocaleOverride "pt"

# Skip system location (go directly to IP lookup)
.\WeatherForecast.ps1 -SkipSystemLocation

# Combine parameters
.\WeatherForecast.ps1 -City "New York" -Units Fahrenheit -LocaleOverride "es"

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
-City	String	Specify city name directly	None (auto-detect)
-Units	String	Temperature units: Celsius or Fahrenheit	Celsius
-SkipSystemLocation	Switch	Skip Windows Location Service, use IP instead	False
-LocaleOverride	String	Force specific language (e.g., en, pt, fr)	System language

Supported Languages

• 🇬🇧 English (en)
• 🇵🇹 Portuguese (pt)
• 🇫🇷 French (fr)
• 🇪🇸 Spanish (es)
• 🇩🇪 German (de)
• 🇮🇹 Italian (it)
• 🇯🇵 Japanese (ja)
• 🇺🇦 Ukrainian (uk)

Want to add more? See locales/README.md

Location Detection Strategy

The script automatically detects your OS and uses a tiered approach to find your location:

Windows

1. Windows Location Service - Most accurate, requires permission
2. IP Geolocation - Fallback using ip-api.com (city-level accuracy)
3. Manual Entry - Prompts for city name if automatic methods fail

Linux

1. GeoClue2 - Uses the Linux standard geolocation service
2. IP Geolocation - Fallback using ip-api.com (city-level accuracy)
3. Manual Entry - Prompts for city name if automatic methods fail

macOS

1. CoreLocation via whereami - Uses macOS location services
2. IP Geolocation - Fallback using ip-api.com (city-level accuracy)
3. Manual Entry - Prompts for city name if automatic methods fail

APIs Used

• Open-Meteo - Free weather forecast API (no key required)
• OpenStreetMap Nominatim - Reverse geocoding for coordinates to city names
• Open-Meteo Geocoding - City name to coordinates
• IP-API - IP-based geolocation

Example Output

╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║     Weather Forecast - 7 Day Outlook              ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

✓ Location: Porto, Portugal

Fetching 7-day weather forecast for Porto...

╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  7-Day Weather Forecast for Porto, Portugal                              ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

Date         Icon Weather      High  Low  Rain           Wind   
----         ---- -------      ----  ---  ----           ----   
Mon 27/10    ☀️   Clear        22°C  15°C -              12 km/h
Tue 28/10    🌤️   M.Clear      21°C  14°C -              15 km/h
Wed 29/10    ⛅   P.Cloudy     19°C  13°C 2.5mm (60%)    18 km/h
Thu 30/10    ☔   Rain         17°C  12°C 8.2mm (85%)    22 km/h

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Weather data: Open-Meteo API | Location: OpenStreetMap Nominatim
Language: English (en)
Last updated: 2025-10-27 14:23:45

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This project uses automatic semantic versioning based on Conventional Commits.

How to Contribute

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feat/amazing-feature)
3. Make your changes
4. Commit using conventional commit format (see below)
5. Push to your fork and create a Pull Request

Commit Message Format

Use conventional commits for automatic versioning:

• feat: - New feature (bumps minor version: 1.0.0 → 1.1.0)
• fix: - Bug fix (bumps patch version: 1.0.0 → 1.0.1)
• docs: - Documentation changes
• perf: - Performance improvements
• refactor: - Code refactoring
• BREAKING CHANGE: - Breaking changes (bumps major version: 1.0.0 → 2.0.0)

Examples:

feat: add support for hourly forecasts
fix: resolve location detection on WSL
docs: update installation instructions
feat!: redesign command line parameters

BREAKING CHANGE: Parameter names have changed

See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed guidelines.

Ways to Contribute

• 🌍 Adding new language translations (see locales/README.md)
• 🐛 Reporting bugs or suggesting features
• 📚 Improving the code or documentation
• ✅ Adding tests and improving cross-platform support

License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

Credits

• Weather data provided by Open-Meteo
• Geocoding by OpenStreetMap Nominatim
• Weather icons using Unicode emoji characters

Troubleshooting

Location service not working

Windows:

• Ensure Windows Location Services are enabled: Settings → Privacy → Location
• Try using -SkipSystemLocation to use IP-based location instead

Linux:

• Ensure GeoClue2 is installed: sudo apt install geoclue-2.0 or sudo dnf install geoclue2
• Check if GeoClue2 service is running: systemctl status geoclue
• Try using -SkipSystemLocation to use IP-based location instead

macOS:

• Install whereami: brew install whereami
• Grant location permissions when prompted
• Try using -SkipSystemLocation to use IP-based location instead

Locale not loading

• Check that locale files exist in the locales/ subdirectory
• Verify JSON files are valid and UTF-8 encoded
• Script falls back to built-in English if locale files are missing

API rate limits

• The script automatically rate-limits Nominatim requests (1/second)
• If you encounter issues, wait a few minutes before trying again

PowerShell version

• For best cross-platform compatibility, use PowerShell 7+
• Install from: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell#get-powershell

Version History

See CHANGELOG.md for detailed version history.

This project follows Semantic Versioning:

• Major version (X.0.0): Breaking changes
• Minor version (0.X.0): New features, backwards compatible
• Patch version (0.0.X): Bug fixes and improvements