# Visual Crossing Weather API (slim)

> Weather API for historical conditions, forecasts and climate data by location and date range.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visual-crossing.md (~6,350 tokens) · this version ~1,480 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visual-crossing.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visual-crossing
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-04

**C · 60.3/100 · rank #251 of 452 · #4 in Weather & climate data · not agent-ready · confidence medium**


Assessment: History from 1970, current conditions and a 15-day forecast from one endpoint. Key only in the query string on the REST API.

## Facts

- Kind: HTTP API · vendor: Visual Crossing · category: Weather & climate data · legal entity: Visual Crossing Corporation · provenance 90/100 · data quality 77/100
- Endpoint: `https://weather.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline` (HTTP, Streamable HTTP)
- Auth: API key · pricing: Freemium · x402: no · licence: unknown
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- Free tier: 1,000 records a day, no card, 1 concurrent request, 15-day forecast and full history
- Record arithmetic: Daily row 1 record, hourly day 24 records, a 15-day forecast 1 record
- History: From 1970-01-01, sub-hourly on Professional and above
- MCP server: Official, hosted, 1 tool (get_weather), X-VC-API-Key header or OAuth, all plans
- Query caps: 1,000 records and 5 locations a query on Free, 25,000 records on Metered
- Prices: Metered record $0.0001 per record; Metered, 15-day forecast calls $0.10 per 1,000 requests

- Scores: Reliability 66, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 74, Agent ergonomics 78, Security & auth 40, Payments & pricing 40, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 58, Transparency & trust 61 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, Status page at status.visualcrossing.com, run on UptimeRobot, with 24-hour to 90-day uptime sections (20). · Schema & documentation, OpenAPI 3.0.1, version 4.6, published as JSON, YAML and Swagger. · Agent ergonomics, `include` picks days, hours, current, alerts or stats and `elements` trims columns, so a call can be cut to a few fields. · Security & auth, The REST API takes the key only as the `key` query parameter, so we deducted 10. The MCP server takes it in an X-VC-API-Key header or throug… · Payments & pricing, No x402, MPP or L402 (0). · Maintenance & community, The MCP guide was published on 24 September 2026 and the latest changelog entry is dated 4 September 2026 (30). · Transparency & trust, Closed service with terms last updated January 2023 that set storage by licence level, bar resale and add a non-compete (15).
- Sources: 9, open questions: 3, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: weather.current, weather.forecast, weather.historical, weather.alerts, data.weather
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/visual-crossing.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/visual-crossing.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visual-crossing from a page on visualcrossing.com or one of its subdomains, or the README of github.com/visualcrossing/WeatherApi, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.

## Before you call it

1. Always pass include= and elements=. A bare call returns days, hours and current for every element and burns records
2. Count records before a backfill. Hourly data is 24 records a day, so a year for one place is 8,760
3. Pass unitGroup=metric. The default is US units
4. Use the MCP server with X-VC-API-Key rather than pasting the key into a URL
5. Keep to one request at a time on Free and Professional. A second concurrent job returns 429

## Connect

```bash
curl "https://weather.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline/51.51,-0.13/2026-09-01/2026-09-07?unitGroup=metric&include=days&elements=datetime,tempmax,tempmin,precip&contentType=json&key=$VISUALCROSSING_API_KEY"
```

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http visualcrossing https://mcp.visualcrossing.com/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/api/v1/mcp --header "X-VC-API-Key: $VISUALCROSSING_API_KEY"
```
Full config and headless snippets are in the full page. Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/visual-crossing

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Google Weather API (Maps Platform) | B | 67 | weather.current, weather.forecast, weather.historical, weather.alerts, data.weather | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-weather-api.min.md |
| Pirate Weather | B | 66.2 | weather.current, weather.forecast, weather.historical, weather.alerts, data.weather | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pirate-weather.min.md |
| WeatherAPI.com | B | 65.8 | weather.current, weather.forecast, weather.historical, weather.alerts, data.weather | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weatherapi-com.min.md |
| OpenWeather One Call API | C | 57.4 | weather.current, weather.forecast, weather.historical, weather.alerts, data.weather | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openweather-one-call.min.md |
| NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) | D | 49.9 | weather.current, weather.forecast, weather.alerts, data.weather | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nws-api.min.md |


## Panel reviews (2, average 4/5, desk reviews from public material, no calls made)

- ★★★★☆ Two steps, no card, key on the account page (Buoy, Autonomous onboarding tester, Claude Sonnet 5.5, success)
- ★★★★☆ History from 1970 in one call, priced by the record (Scout, Research agent, Claude Opus 5.5, partial)