Recipes

Recipe: Lightning Forecast

This recipe shows how to fetch lightning probability forecasts for a given location.

These recipes are teaching examples — not production code.

Host: examples use the development host apidev.accuweather.com. Switch to api.accuweather.com for production.
Production hardening: GZIP compression, caching, retries with exponential backoff, and error handling are not included. See the Best Practices guide.

Scenario

"I want to show users whether lightning is likely near their location in the next 2 hours."

Call the Lightning forecasts endpoint with a latitude and longitude.

Endpoint:

Code
GET https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/forecasts/geoposition?apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}&q={latitude},{longitude}

Key response fields

Field	Type	Description
`latitude`	Number	Latitude of the requested point
`longitude`	Number	Longitude of the requested point
`initDateTime`	String	Forecast initialization time in ISO 8601 format
`forecasts[].startDateTime`	String	Start of the 10-minute interval in ISO 8601 format
`forecasts[].startEpochTime`	Integer	Start of the interval as epoch seconds
`forecasts[].probability`	Number	Percentage likelihood of at least one lightning strike during the interval

Complete code sample

Copy a full, runnable example that fetches the lightning forecast, assesses risk, and flags high-risk intervals.

Next steps

Real-Time Lightning — see current strikes near a location
Historical Lightning — analyze past lightning activity
Lightning Parameters — full API reference

Last modified on May 7, 2026

Real-Time Lightning Historical Lightning

Scenario

"I want to show users whether lightning is likely near their location in the next 2 hours."

Call the Lightning forecasts endpoint with a latitude and longitude.

Endpoint:

Code
GET https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/forecasts/geoposition?apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}&q={latitude},{longitude}

const apiKey = "{YOUR_API_KEY}";
const lat = 38.63;
const lon = -90.2;

const res = await fetch(
  `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/forecasts/geoposition?apikey=${apiKey}&q=${lat},${lon}`
);
const data: Record<string, any> = await res.json();
console.log(`Forecast initialized at: ${data.initDateTime}`);

Key response fields

Field

Type

Description

latitude

Number

Latitude of the requested point

longitude

Number

Longitude of the requested point

initDateTime

String

Forecast initialization time in ISO 8601 format

forecasts[].startDateTime

String

Start of the 10-minute interval in ISO 8601 format

forecasts[].startEpochTime

Integer

Start of the interval as epoch seconds

forecasts[].probability

Number

Percentage likelihood of at least one lightning strike during the interval

Complete code sample

Copy a full, runnable example that fetches the lightning forecast, assesses risk, and flags high-risk intervals.

const API_KEY = "{YOUR_API_KEY}";
const lat = 38.63;
const lon = -90.2;

// Step 1: Fetch the forecast
const res = await fetch(
  `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/forecasts/geoposition?apikey=${API_KEY}&q=${lat},${lon}`
);
const data: Record<string, any> = await res.json();

console.log("\n⚡ Lightning Forecast — Next 2 Hours");
console.log("━".repeat(42) + "\n");

// Step 2: Overall risk assessment
const maxProb = Math.max(...data.forecasts.map((f: any) => f.probability));

if (maxProb >= 50) console.log("🔴 High lightning risk — stay indoors.\n");
else if (maxProb >= 30) console.log("🟡 Moderate lightning risk — monitor conditions.\n");
else console.log("🟢 Low lightning risk for the next 2 hours.\n");

// Step 3: Flag risky intervals
const riskyIntervals = data.forecasts.filter((f: any) => f.probability >= 30);
if (riskyIntervals.length > 0) {
  console.log("Intervals above 30%:");
  for (const f of riskyIntervals) {
    const time = f.startDateTime.slice(11, 16);
    console.log(`  ${time}  ${f.probability.toFixed(0)}%`);
  }
  console.log("");
}

Scenario

1Make the request

2Inspect the response

3Check for lightning risk

Key response fields

Complete code sample

Next steps

Scenario

1Make the request

2Inspect the response

3Check for lightning risk

Key response fields

Complete code sample

Next steps