There are a lot of great R packages that let you import data from an API with a single function. However, sometimes an API doesn’t have an already-written function. The good news is that it’s easy to code your own.
I’ll demonstrate this with the AccuWeather API, but the process and code will work for most other APIs that use a key for authentication.
Sign up for API access
If you want to follow along, go to developer.accuweather.com and sign up for a free account. Under Packages and Pricing, select the Limited Trial, which allows 50 API calls per day — enough if you just want to check your local forecast a couple of times a day, but obviously not for any sort of public-facing application.