creating a wiget for a custom theme

I want to install a weather plugin, but am building a theme from scratch and as consequence there is no widget for me to select. I’m trying to follow the examples on the Widgets_API but am not having a lot of luck with that.

Here’s is my code:

<?php register_sidebar($args); ?>

        <div id="lowerLeft">
            <?php dynamic_sidebar($sidebar);?>

            <div id="temperature">
               <?php if ( !dynamic_sidebar()): ?>
                  <p> the plugin would go here</p>
               <?php endif; ?>
            </div><!-- end of temperature -->
 </div><!-- end of lowerLeft -->

I’m getting the text output without error, but I’m still not seeing the widget in the admin panel. Any help would be appreciated.

Here’s the link: link