# Ancient Web: wttr.in Made a Weather Report Fit Inside a Terminal Igor Chubin's wttr.in brought plain-text and ANSI-art weather reports to command-line browsers, turning a simple URL into a long-running open-source service. 2026-10-17 :: Switchboard Tech Services ![Ancient Web: wttr.in Made a Weather Report Fit Inside a Terminal](https://switchboardtechservices.com/static/images/defaults/articles.webp) Part of the [Ancient Web Collection](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-collection/). A weather website usually wants to be an app. [wttr.in](http://wttr.in) is quite happy to be a picture made of punctuation. [Visit wttr.in](https://wttr.in/). The service returns forecasts formatted for a text terminal: little suns, clouds, rows of daily conditions, temperature, wind and precipitation. Its [open-source documentation](https://github.com/chubin/wttr.in) describes how the same address can also provide HTML, plain text, PNG graphics or structured data. The display changes according to the requesting program. A browser and a terminal can visit the same service without needing the same interface. This is not a surviving website from 1996. It is a later project that deliberately preserves a command-line way of using the Internet. A [PowerShell example published by creator Igor Chubin in February 2016](https://gist.github.com/chubin/22a239783c67456eb0de) shows the idea was already circulating a decade ago. ## A forecast that fits inside a URL The project's [README](https://github.com/chubin/wttr.in/blob/master/README.md) starts with a one-line request, `curl wttr.in`. To check a different city, append its name: `wttr.in/London`. Airport codes, custom output strings, moon phases and alternate languages are documented in the same sprawling reference. The format is surprisingly useful for both a human and a script. One display prints an ASCII weather icon, while a shorter request returns a single line suitable for a shell prompt or a desktop status bar. The project documents terminal-specific character limitations and works with `curl`, `wget`, PowerShell and browser clients. Chubin says the service began as a wrapper around the console forecast program *wego*. The repository now includes server code, documentation, supported output formats and integration instructions. It offers a much more involved service than its tiny interface initially suggests. The scale claimed by its maintainers is notable: the README reports roughly **100 million daily queries** in April 2026, drawn from its own access logs. That is an operator-supplied estimate rather than independently verified traffic. Where many websites insist on adding a visual dashboard, [wttr.in](http://wttr.in) retains a distinctly older Internet virtue. One URL gives you useful information, without an account, a timeline or an application marketplace. Its page changes with the actual weather, so a visit today is not a historical snapshot. The enduring artifact is the interface contract: simple text, familiar commands and a public service that accepts requests from decidedly unfashionable software. [Explore the source, usage examples and documented formats](https://github.com/chubin/wttr.in). Part of the [Ancient Web Collection](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-collection/). - Categories: [Ancient Web](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/categories/ancient-web/) - Tags: [#Terminal](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/terminal/), [#ancientweb](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/ancientweb/), [#opensource](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/opensource/), [#weather](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/weather/), [#ascii](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/ascii/) [Articles RSS](https://switchboardtechservices.com/feeds/articles.xml "Subscribe using an RSS reader") --- Canonical URL: https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-wttr-in-made-a-weather-report-fit-inside-a-terminal/ Language: en-us Content type: article Author: Switchboard Tech Services Published: 2026-10-18T04:44:45+00:00 Modified: 2026-10-18T21:05:07.019299+00:00 Description: wttr.in demonstrates the persistence of text-first Internet design through curl forecasts, multilingual output, old-terminal compatibility and an open development archive.