def METHOD_NAME(self, the_dict):
    """
    Parses a list of *Observation* instances out of raw input dict containing a list. Only certain properties of
    the data are used: if these properties are not found or cannot be parsed, an error is issued.
    :param the_dict: the input dictionary
    :type the_dict: `dict`
    :returns: a `list` of *Observation* instances or ``None`` if no data is available
    :raises: *ParseAPIResponseError* if it is impossible to find or parse the
        data needed to build the result, *APIResponseError* if the OWM API returns an HTTP status error
    """
    if the_dict is None:
        raise exceptions.ParseAPIResponseError('JSON data is None')
    if 'cod' in the_dict:
        # Check if server returned errors: this check overcomes the lack of use
        # of HTTP error status codes by the OWM API 2.5. This mechanism is
        # supposed to be deprecated as soon as the API fully adopts HTTP for
        # conveying errors to the clients
        if the_dict['cod'] == "200" or the_dict['cod'] == 200:
            pass
        else:
            if the_dict['cod'] == "404" or the_dict['cod'] == 404:
                print("OWM API: data not found")
                return None
            else:
                raise exceptions.APIResponseError("OWM API: error - response payload", the_dict['cod'])
    # Handle the case when no results are found
    if 'count' in the_dict and the_dict['count'] == "0":
        return []
    if 'cnt' in the_dict and the_dict['cnt'] == 0:
        return []
    if 'list' in the_dict:
        return [Observation.from_dict(item) for item in the_dict['list']]
    # no way out..
    raise exceptions.ParseAPIResponseError(''.join([__name__, ': impossible to read JSON data'])