Converting from AccuWeather to Visual Crossing Weather: A Simple Guide

September 24, 2025

While AccuWeather provides a strong source of weather data and a useful API for retrieving it, many users quickly run into limitations. For some the primary limitation is AccuWeather’s lack of a free tier. Many people just need a small amount of data or want to write code and set up their systems before deciding to pay for the service. For others, it is the cost. AccuWeather can be very expensive in many cases. In addition there is the API itself. AccuWeather offers many different API entry points and you have to pick the right one to use at the right time for the right purpose. Most applications need to use several different entry points just to get a simple weather report. When AccuWeather customers and prospects look for a better solution, many find Visual Crossing Weather’s generous free tier, simple, low-cost pricing, broad historical and forecast data, and single entry point TimeLine API compelling.

The good news? Converting your code from AccuWeather to Visual Crossing is straightforward. In many cases, the conversation can be done in minutes, and, as a bonus, your code will be greatly simplified also. In this example, we’ll walk through the conversion process using the 15-day forecast as our example.

Step 1. How Your AccuWeather Code Works

With AccuWeather, the simple task of fetching a forecast requires two API calls:

  1. Location Search (to get a location key) /locations/v1/cities/search?q=New%20York
  2. Forecast Request (using that key) /forecasts/v1/daily/15day/{locationKey}?metric=true

This two-step design means extra overhead both in both your code complexity and in your network traffic each time you request data.

Step 2. Visual Crossing Simplifies It

Visual Crossing uses a single endpoint that accepts plain location names or coordinates. You don’t need to complicate your code with a separate location lookup API. For example:

https://weather.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline/New%20York,NY?unitGroup=metric&include=days&key=YOUR_KEY&contentType=json

That one call returns:

  • Current conditions
  • Hourly forecasts
  • Up to 15-day daily forecasts
  • And even historical data if you specify past dates

Step 3. Example: Java Code Conversion

Here’s a simple Java sample using Visual Crossing Weather. Notice how it’s simpler. There is no location key lookup required. All you need to do is pass the location directly to the Visual Crossing TimeLine API, and you get a direct JSON response ready for use. In fact, it is so simple that you 

import java.net.URI;
import java.net.http.HttpClient;
import java.net.http.HttpRequest;
import java.net.http.HttpResponse;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;

public class VCWeatherExample {
    private static final String API_KEY = System.getenv("VC_WEATHER_KEY");
    private static final HttpClient http = HttpClient.newHttpClient();
    private static final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        String location = "New York,NY";
        String url = String.format(        "https://weather.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline/%s?unitGroup=metric&include=days&key=%s&contentType=json",
            location.replace(" ", "%20"), API_KEY);

        HttpRequest req = HttpRequest.newBuilder(URI.create(url)).GET().build();
        HttpResponse<String> res = http.send(req, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofString());

        JsonNode root = mapper.readTree(res.body());
        for (JsonNode day : root.path("days")) {
            String date = day.path("datetime").asText();
            double min = day.path("tempmin").asDouble();
            double max = day.path("tempmax").asDouble();
            String conditions = day.path("conditions").asText();
            System.out.printf("%s: High %.1f°C / Low %.1f°C (%s)%n", date, max, min, conditions);
        }
    }
}

Step 4. Key Differences

  • Ease of Use — Visual Crossing’s unified TimeLine API presents a single, easy-to-use entry point that accepts city names or coordinates directly. There is no need to make multiple calls to get a single piece of data.
  • Data Breadth — The same Visual Crossing API entry point provides both forecast and historical data. You can even get both types of data in a single call just by setting the appropriate date request range.
  • Free Tier — Visual Crossing offers a permanent free tier with a generous request allotment that provides access to historical data, forecast data, current condition, weather alerts, and more — not just a short trial.
  • Query Options — Use simple, intuitive query parameters such as unitGroup=metric and include=hours to customize the data that you receive to exactly match your specific needs.

Step 5. Migration Checklist

  1. Replace the two-step AccuWeather flow with a single Visual Crossing TimeLine endpoint.
  2. Update your JSON parsing as necessary. Visual Crossing uses intuitive fields like tempmax, tempmin, and conditions.
  3. (Optional) Explore all the extras that Visual Crossing has to offer. These include severe weather alerts, historical weather statistics, station profiles, ultra-long-range forecasts, historical forecasts, enhanced energy and agriculture elements, and more — all from the same endpoint!

Conclusion

Switching from AccuWeather to Visual Crossing is easy and often results in simpler code and more flexible data access. With one call you can cover locations, current conditions, forecasts, and history saving both developer time and API costs. If you have run into limitations with AccuWeather, you can get your weather project back on track and under budget by switching to Visual Crossing Weather. Visual Crossing lets you build faster, test freely, and scale without worrying about API costs.