Update: After trying to fix the failover issue, we experienced an episode of butterfingers, causing another outage between 12:36 and 13:26 UTC today. The culprits, having been suitably tarred and feathered are being carried out from the server room on a rail as we speak.
]]>Version 3.0 has been out of beta since March last year, and it’s time to retire the old version. It will expire on 16 March, so please update your systems to handle the new GeoJSON format instead of the old proprietary XML format. As previously notified, the landoverview forecast period is now only two days, instead of three as in earlier versions.
After a short period in beta, the new version 2.0 is now officially launched. This uses the standard TAC format instead of XML. Version 1.6 is now deprecated and will expire on 16 March 2026.
Due to little use we are removing the “small” size geosatellite images on 1 March. Normally this should imply a new version, but since the majority of users won’t be affected it would be inconvenient to force them to update their systems.
Instead we are increasing the update frequency of some images from hourly to every 10 minutes. This will affect the infrared images for the global and atlantic_ocean areas.
]]>https://api.met.no/weatherapi/textforecast/3.0/documentation
Also, starting on 1 April, the “landoverview” text forecast will be shortened from 3 days ahead to 2 days ahead. More precisely the 00 and 06 terms will contain days 0 and 1, whereas the 12 and 18 terms will include days 0 to 2. This was announced on the website in December, but continued delays in the 3.0 launch meant that email notification wasn’t sent out earlier. We apologise for the inconvenience.
]]>As mentioned the new version is using a new CAP profile (v2), which means more data in the GeojSON feed. Since all previous CAP and GeoJSON alerts in the archive are using profile v1, these are not so good for development and testing until the archive is populated with v2 profiles some time next year.
To compensate, we have added an /example endpoint which works just like the
others, except that the alerts will remain in effect for the next 10 years.
Currently the event types forestFire, blowingSnow, rainFlood, lightning and
rainFlood are supported, more will be added later.
We must also stress the importance of handling redirects correctly! This is mandatory for the whole API, but we will shortly (starting next week) be serving most CAP files with a redirect to our object store, so make sure your systems are compatible before 7 May.
Moving on, the Verticalprofile product will be terminated on 31 May 2024. This is mainly being used by our Halo site (for the public service sector), but as this is being replaced by Værio it is no longer needed. If you are a current user, please contact us and describe your requirements for an eventual replacement.
Finally, we would like to apologize for the intermittent service disruptions on 10 April between 14 and 16 UTC, which was caused by a malfunctioning spine switch causing one of the file servers to be unresponsive. We’re not sure if this was noticable for external users, but the graphs show some dropouts.
]]>In the new version we have the following endpoints:
/current - only currently valid alerts
/all - every alert for the last 4 weeks (same as "show=all" in 1.1)
/test - "fake" alerts for test purposes
/archive - previously issued alerts since 2019
All endpoints support output in RSS, GeoJSON and CAP (XML) formats. Positional search (lat=…&lon=…) works for all endpoints, but is much faster (except for /archive). Some features are still marked as experimental, but will become stable in May on the official launch.
New parameters have been added, including:
Also, the documentation has been vastly improved. Lists of parameters with explanations are now available for both CAP profiles (v1 and v2), and the GeoJSON format now has a proper spec, and is not expected to change until the next version.
We hope users will take a look at the new version and update their systems before version 1.1 is terminated, probably after the summer. More information will be given on the mailing list when the new version is out of beta.
]]>The admins have identified the problem, and made some adjustments so that similar incidents should not happen again. Next week they will restart all services in order, after which they will make another attempt to turn off the old DNS servers. We don’t expect any downtimes on api.met.no, but if you should experience problems during the following time periods, no action is needed:
In addition they are also changing some network components which are likely to cause some short disruptions in our services. We had about 3 mins downtime on Tuesday (Dec 5th) around 09:30 UTC, although it is difficult to see if it affected the whole API or just our monitoring systems. More maintenance was planned for today, but postponed due to critical weather conditions. The current plan is to upgrade the remaining components on Monday (11th) at 09:00 UTC, when there might be some short interruptions of service. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but hopefully things will be stable during the xmas period.
As for the rest of the API, there have only been a few minor changes the last six months:
Plans for next year include migrating to new servers during February, hopefully with better performance. We are also busy implementing the OGC API EDR standard, which is likely to be the predominant search interface for all MET services in the future and something you might like to read up on.
]]>The venerable Sunrise version 2.0, which is our second most popular product, is being retired. Consisting of 100K lines of Fortran code, it has become impossible to maintain after the main developer left us, and is being replaced with a much smaller Python library which uses GeoJSON as its standard output format instead of XML. You can find the source code on Github:
https://github.com/metno/celestial
The full astro application has a whole host of features which was never used by the API, including a GUI planetarium where you can see planetary orbits in real time. If you are interested in astronomy we urge you to check out this project, wishing it will have a long life outside of MET:
https://github.com/FrankThomasTveter/astro-api
Version 3.0, which has been in beta for many months is expected to be officially launched on 15 June, at which time version 2.0 will be deprecated. We plan to support the old version until 31 August, so you should have plenty of time to port your client application to the new JSON format. (Note also that the new version is much stricter with regards to identification in the User-Agent header.)
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/sunrise/3.0/documentation
On 8 June we will be launching a new version of the Turbulence map product, using Machine Learning and a much higher update rate (every 3 hours for 18 hours ahead, instead of only every 12 hours). The current version (1.1) will be terminated on 10 July 2023.
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/turbulence/2.0/documentation
At the same time we will also be launching a new product for offshore helicopter flight maps. This was previously available under the Routemaps product, but now has several more areas and a higher update frequency:
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/offshoremaps/1.0/documentation
Due to popular demand, we will soon be deploying a new marine simulation model (WaveWatch) in Gribfiles which follows the meteorological convention of the values indicating where the waves are coming from (instead of going to as in the current version). This means you finally will be able to input the GRIB files into your marine chart plotter and see the waves going the right way! There is no change in the API interface so file downloads will work as before, but check the Changelog to see when the new files are being deployed.
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/gribfiles/1.1/changelog
We have also recently added three new harbours to the Tidalwater product:
Whereas in older versions we had a functional API, the current version of WeatherIcon is only indended as a one-time download of an archive of icon files. Still, many users are hotlinking the icons and downloading the static file “legend” for every request, causing a lot of unnecessary traffic. As a consequence we will be removing the weather icons from the API, moving it instead to the documentation and only allowing the icons to be downloaded offline. This is planned to terminate on 31 August.
We are rolling out a new field updated in the Available JSON feed. By
comparing this timestamp with your previous downloads you can easily check if
there’s any new files to be downloaded without having to make separate requests
for each. This feature is gradually being ported to each API product separately.
We are also working on adding solar influx to the global Locationforecast
“complete” JSON output. This has been a much requested feature and is of special
importance to the solar industry. Delivery has been delayed but expect to see it
late this year. You can already find it in the Nordic model NetCDF files as
integral_of_surface_downwelling_shortwave_flux_in_air_wrt_time:
https://thredds.met.no/thredds/dodsC/metpplatest/met_forecast_1_0km_nordic_latest.nc.html
Finally, as some of you may have noticed we have redesigned both the API and documentation web pages, with a responsive design that finally works on mobile devices and is WCAG compliant. Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions as we are always trying to improve the usability of the API.
Have a great summer (or winter, if you’re in that part of the globe)!
]]>You might notice some changes in the CAP XML format for the warnings. Up to now, all the CAP files have contained only one area per info block, and only one polygon per area element. We have now done some changes in how we produce the CAP files, and some warnings may contain several polygons per area element.
This has always been allowed according to the CAP standard. Since it has not been used in the CAP warnings from MET Norway up to now, we suggest you check that your systems can handle this.
Note that in case of overlapping polygons, the are covered is the total of all the polygons, with no holes. According to the CAP standard:
if multiple
<polygon>,<circle>or<geocode>elements are included, the area described by this<area>block is represented by the union of all the included elements.
We have also been busy making a new version of the Textforecast product, this time in GeoJSON format which many of you have asked for. This means that the coordinates are now included in the JSON file, instead of having to be looked up separately. You can test it here:
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/textforecast/3.0/documentation
Currently only the land and coast forecasts are included in the beta, sea forecasts may follow at a later date.
A new version of the Turbulence charts are expected to be released in beta on Feb 1 2023. We are also working on a new version of Sunrise, this time in native JSON which many of you have asked for. Stay tuned for more updates.
]]>Due to changed requirements the horizontal maps will be discontinued on Sept 1st. The only product still available after that date will be the vertical cross sections (vcross).
Since this is a breaking change and lots of stuff in the interface and documentation suddenly becoming redundant, we have decided to make a new version 2.0 with only the vcross images as can be found here:
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/routeforecast/2.0/documentation
Version 1.0 is now deprecated, and will be removed on 2022-09-01.
From our logs there were hardly anyone using the horizontal maps, but users of the vcross images must now update their URLs to the new format:
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/routeforecast/2.0/?route=....
(Also note that the new version is stricter about identification than before, so if you haven’t already set a User-Agent header with contact information this is a good time to do so.)
]]>From 1 June 2022 there will be some changes in the CAP warnings in MetAlerts:
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/metalerts/1.1/
Some of the area polygons will now be drawn freehand by the meteorologists, and will be in better agreement with the actual weather situation. We will still use geocode “county” and “municipalityId” for the affected administrative areas, but geocodes NUTS3 and iso will no longer be included in the CAP file.
We suggest that users of CAP warnings make some extra checks after 1 June to ensure their systems are running as intended. If you should find any discrepancies, please contact us.
Next week, the number of available routes will increase from 27 to 86. Also, the time period covered will decrease from 66 hours to 22. This should result in a reduction in the number of files in available from 50 to 7-9 per route. Also, the number of timegraph locations will increase from 55 to 75.
To assist in sorting and filtering images, we will also be adding a new “region” parameter to the available list, e.g.:
https://api.met.no/weatherapi/nlaroutes/1.0/available.json?region=middle
The following regions will be available for both routes and locations:
north, middle, southeast, southwest, coast, old
After a short grace period to enable you to change your systems, the routes and locations in the “old” region will be removed. This is planned to be implemented on 1. July, and will affect the following routes and locations:
Total of 16 routes: AAL-ENRT, ENAN-ENAT, ENAT-ENSS, ENBO-ENVR, ENLX-ENBG, ENLX-ENFL, ENLX-ENKH, ENLX-ENRT, ENLX-ENSX, ENLX-ENTS, ENLX-XZFR, ENMS-ENRA, ENRA-ENBO, ENTC-ENMH, ENTS-ENRT, ENZZ-ENKB
Total of 13 locations: ALVDAL, AURLAND, BLAKSTAD, BYKLE, DALSBYGDA, ELVERUM, GULSVIK, NORDREISA, NOTODDEN, SPYDEBERG, TANA, ULLENSVANG, VEGGLI
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