[API/Model request] Add DWD ICON model as provider

[sheltpat]

Open Meteo documents an API for the German Weather Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD) ICON models (Global, Europe, D2), which is an option in apps like Breezy Weather.

Edit: It looks like it uses the Bright Sky JSON API.

Benefit

• "Europe" and especially "D2" for countries surrounding Germany have provided more accurate forecasts in my personal experience or perception.
  Open Meteo is good, but in my case its forecast was always a bit less precise and uncertain.
• DWD provides alerts for warnings, which Open Meteo does not
  (For worldwide it might be worth checking WMO Severe Weather as listed on Breezy Weather's sources doc.)

Downsides / Deal breakers

• DWD ICON does provide almost any data Open Meteo does, but lacks pollen warnings, precipitation nowcasting and air quality.
  For these Breezy Weather has a granular setting to choose a source for every set of data, which allows to complement the DWD data on one screen.
  However, the app's provider option has to be reworked, I'd think.
  A compromise might be to not display elements that are not provided by the API.
• The spatial resolution from other providers might be more precise for global users, as well as the temporal one, possibly only benefitting European or some additional global users. (Although there is a "Global" and a "Seamless" model, the latter being a combined one.)

As you might have guessed, I'm currently a user of Breezy Weather, but this option would make it a viable alternative for me, especially with features like the rain radar available.
_

Additional info:
Breezy Weather has a separate option for sources (see comment below) and model.
I have no idea what the difference is between selecting Open Meteo as source with DWD ICON as model and selecting DWD as source directly with the same model.
Both provide slightly different data for me, so I will ask there and add anything I find out.

[sheltpat]

Edit: Screenshot now added. Comment is now mostly redundant.

(GitHub does not let me attach an image as an example, I have no idea why.

Anyway, to clarify what I mean by Breezy Weather's granular provider option:
When you edit your location, it opens a floating window and tapping on "Weather sources" then lists an option for each element. Like so:

• Forecast
  Bright Sky (DWD) (Germany)

• Current weather
  Bright Sky (DWD) (Germany)

• Air quality
  Open-Meteo

...

As I write this comment, I noticed it probably uses this JSON API.)

[sheltpat]

Found out about the models. Models are only a parameter if any source (see comment below) is set to Open Meteo.
It has no effect if the source is the Bright Sky DWD API.

So the request is to add the Bright Sky JSON API as source for the DWD data.

Since some data is not provided by Bright Sky/DWD, it, I refer to my initial post again for a possible solution:

Downsides / Deal breakers

• DWD ICON does provide almost any data Open Meteo does, but lacks pollen warnings, precipitation nowcasting and air quality.
• For these Breezy Weather has a granular setting to choose a source for every set of data, which allows to complement the DWD data on one screen.
• However, the app's provider option has to be reworked, I'd think.
• A compromise might be to not display elements that are not provided by the API.

Or now that I know how Breezy Weather deals with it, you could use complimentary data from Open Meteo to fill the rest, or rather as a fallback if Bright Sky does not return a parameter.

As I said in my initial post, it would provide more accurate results, judging from my experience.
If not out of scope (I fully respect your time investment), maybe there are other regional sources other users can provide as well.

[bmaroti9]

Hi! Okay, so i have thought about adding the different weather models (including DWD) as a drop-down option under the open-meteo provider. This would be much more easier than going through all of their individual documentations and doing them one-by-one, which would be totally useless, as as best as i understand that's exactly what open-meteo does.
The brightSky api does look very user-friendly and straightforward, but i would much rather just use open-meteo's which should do the same thing. The alerts are a nice addition though, i could maybe do that one manually.

(For worldwide it might be worth checking WMO Severe Weather as listed on Breezy Weather's sources doc.)

I'm not sure what to do with this one. I checked the website you provided, but there is no mention of an api that i could use to retrieve data. And manually searching for one only brought me to one that doesn't seem to work anymore... or at least i couldn't seem to get any data out of it.

Anyway, to clarify what I mean by Breezy Weather's granular provider option:
When you edit your location, it opens a floating window and tapping on "Weather sources" then lists an option for each element

Yeah, I know how Breezy does it, but they have hundreds of contributors working on getting all the data from those apis, combining them, adding fallbacks ect...
As i'm basically working on this project alone, this would a tremendously huge task for me, so i'm currently focusing on apis that cover global, (that's why i chose open-meteo, weatherapi, met-norway). Adding the different models for open-meteo is an exception of course because it's the exactly same api as the combined one.
With more and more providers the whole thing gets more unmanageable, and harder to add new features, because of the need to add across all providers, and trying to figure out what to do if the data isn't there.
That I think is the reason other foss weather apps like Weather Master have also stopped adding new providers.

I think a good compromise is just to add it from open-meteo, because it guarantees 90% of the features, way more easily. And of course by adding that, probably it will also enable adding all the other models too.

[bmaroti9]

Found out about the models. Models are only a parameter if any source (see comment below) is set to Open Meteo. It has no effect if the source is the Bright Sky DWD API.

So the request is to add the Bright Sky JSON API as source for the DWD data.

Since some data is not provided by Bright Sky/DWD, it, I refer to my initial post again for a possible solution:

Downsides / Deal breakers

• DWD ICON does provide almost any data Open Meteo does, but lacks pollen warnings, precipitation nowcasting and air quality.
• For these Breezy Weather has a granular setting to choose a source for every set of data, which allows to complement the DWD data on one screen.
• However, the app's provider option has to be reworked, I'd think.
• A compromise might be to not display elements that are not provided by the API.

Or now that I know how Breezy Weather deals with it, you could use complimentary data from Open Meteo to fill the rest, or rather as a fallback if Bright Sky does not return a parameter.

As I said in my initial post, it would provide more accurate results, judging from my experience. If not out of scope (I fully respect your time investment), maybe there are other regional sources other users can provide as well.

Hmm i just saw this (I wrote my reply before just before this). So you only want DWD data from bright-sky and not from open-meteo?

[sheltpat]

The brightSky api does look very user-friendly and straightforward, but i would much rather just use open-meteo's which should do the same thing.

So you only want DWD data from bright-sky and not from open-meteo?

I did some testing (in Breezy Weather) and Open Meteo does provide different data than Bright Sky/DWD.
I am not sure which data Open Meteo fetches, but the hourly temperature is currently 4°C higher (24°C / 21°C, almost 20%) than the data from Bright Sky. I have set the ICON D2 model for Open Meteo as well. (It's only applicable to Open Meteo anyway.)
So yes, to me Bright Sky data is preferable, but not a deal breaker for your app. I might just use both.

I see how it might not be feasible in how you describe it, I totally understand. It is a big undertaking for a single person. It's fine and I'm not disappointed if

And of course by adding that, probably it will also enable adding all the other models too.

It would, but like I said, if choosing an ICON model the data is still different, maybe there's some extrapolation by Open Meteo.
So changing the model for Open Meteo results in different data than Bright Sky.
I am a layman, though, so I can only speculate and report what I have observed. :/

(For worldwide it might be worth checking WMO Severe Weather as listed on Breezy Weather's sources doc.)

I'm not sure what to do with this one. I checked the website you provided, but there is no mention of an api that i could use to retrieve data.

I only mentioned it because I stumbled across it on BW's docs. I thought it might help, if an alert function would get implemented, but didn't pay closer attention. It is an option in BW, however that might work.

So anyway, it is a great app as is. The lengthy post of mine was also just because i did not understand BW's inner workings.
In the end i just requested another API many users might not even use.