Prologue: Why place an order when I can use the API?

This report system is for downloading large amounts of historical data. Or making small one-off requests. Price varies based on the report request properties. Report requests are invoiced separately from subscriptions, and a user's subscription level has no impact on pricing. As such, it is not required to be enrolled in a paid plan to use this feature.

Placing An Order

To place an order for a custom historical data report:

  • Navigate to the account dashboard, and select the "Historical Data Order" tab on the left.
  • Select the input data type (1st column). This will determine the expected headers of the file that you will upload. The following choices are currently available: "City ID", and "Custom ID, Latitude, Longitude". If you select "City ID" each row will be a supported city ID found on our metadata page.
  • (cont.) Alternatively, if you select "Custom ID, Latitude, Longitude" - The first field will be a custom identifier that you define. Custom ID's must be integer values, and must be unique for every row in the file. The Custom ID value will be used to identify the result files. (See examples below)
Input Data Type Example Upload File (csv)
Custom ID, Latitude, Longitude file
City ID file
  • Select the output units (Metric = Celsius, m/s, mm, km or Imperial = Fahrenheit, mph, in, miles).
  • Select the date range of the output data - "Start Date", and "End Date".
  • Select the granularity of the output data (daily, hourly, or subhourly).
  • Agree to the terms and conditions.
  • Select "Estimate Price". This will validate all of your inputs, and provide you with both an estimate for the price as well as the estimated time the report will take to finish.
  • At this point you can modify your inputs, and use the "Estimate Price" button to update your estimate.
  • Once you find a set of inputs you are satisfied with, select the "Submit" button. Once finished, you can find your invoice link. Additionally, the invoice will be sent to the primary email on the account. Once this invoice is paid, the report will enter a "Processing" state.
Follow the "Pay Invoice Now" to pay the invoice. It will also be emailed to you, and you can find it at any time in the dashboard.
  • If you did not receive this email, or you lost the original link supplied - you can simply revisit the "Historical Data Order" tab in the dashboard. Scroll down, and you will find your orders, as well as invoice links.
At the bottom of the order page, you can find all of your orders. You can also delete any pending unpaid orders. Once an order has been paid, it can not be deleted.

Downloading Your Report:

  • Once your order is ready, you will receive an email with a download link, as well as the AWS S3 location it is hosted in. (Example - s3://weatherbit-orders/12345_3r47wefdhu948767s6df0992/historical_data_order.tar)
File Type Example Format
Data file historical_data_order.tar Tar archive
  • This "Tar" archive contains a file containing data for each location in the report, as well as a meta data file containing all locations.
  • You can download your order data with this aws CLI command. Or directly with the link in your email. You can also access this in the account dashboard.


aws s3 cp s3://my_order_bucket/order_hash/historical_data_order.tar .

Example download with aws cli

  • tar archives can be unpacked with most standard compression libraries like 7Zip
  • Or you can unpack it with the following command:


mkdir -p historical_data_order && tar -xf historical_data_order.tar -C historical_data_order
  • All data files within the Tar archive are gzipped (compressed). To unzip these, simply use the following command. Gzipped files can be decompressed with most standard compression libraries like 7Zip.
  • After unpacking the Tar file you can unzip the files with the following command:

gunzip historical_data_order/*
  • Additionally, you will find a file named "report_index.csv". This file contains your location ID's mapped to their file name, as well as their lat/lon if originally supplied.
Unpacked, and unzipped archive
Example file contents for subhourly historical data - using Custom Id, Latitude, Longitude data type inputs
  • If you supplied a City ID input the "Location ID" field will match the City ID. If you supplied Custom ID's - the "Location ID" field will match the "Custom ID" you supplied. Each file name in the tarball will correspond the Location ID.

Please note that your data files will be available for download for 30 days after the order is completed. After 30 days, they will be deleted.