Locationforecast 2.0
For the last couple of years we have been working on a new forecast backend (FORTI) to replace the decade-old, PostgreSQL-based store (WDB). While Locationforecast/1.9 has been running from FORTI for some months now in "compatibility mode", we have finally finalized the new JSON format which will become standard for all weather forecasts soon.
We are still busy fixing the documentation which is a bit rough in places, but take a look at the JSON format and data model documentation soon.
Version 2.0 comes in three different flavours:
/weatherapi/locationforecast/2.0/complete
This service endpoint will return a response with all available forecast parameters. As we make new forecast parameters available, they will be added to the responses for this service endpoint (we expect to include probability percentile data fairly soon). Also, some geographical areas will have more forecast parameters available than others.
/weatherapi/locationforecast/2.0/compact
This service endpoint will return a response with only a core set of forecast parameters. All forecast parameters in this endpoint will be available for every location. We will add new parameters to this endpoint as well, but much more rarely, and the size will not increase much. If you feel there is some useful parameters missing here, please let us know.
/weatherapi/locationforecast/2.0/classic
This service endpoint exists only for backwards compatibility purposes. The parameters in this endpoint and the XML format provided are identical with /locationforecast/1.9, but with more time intervals. Use this if you have an existing application and want to do minimal work to update it. We don't expect adding any more parameters (XML tags) to this format in the future.
We have also introduced an improved topography for the entire world, which
should give more accurate temperature forecasts in some areas. This
topography will be used if you do not specify altitude in your request.
Note that the improved topography is still relatively coarse. We therefore
recommend that you specify your own altitude in the request if you have
access to your own topography data.
With great power comes great responsibility. Regardless if you're Voltaire, Churchill or Spider-Man, all users must now adhere to the Terms of Service (more below) more stringently. In particular you must pay more attention to the following rules:
You must identify yourself with contact information in the User-Agent request header. Whereas requests without any such header or just a generic string (e.g. "okhttp/3.12.4") until now has been throttled, new products will return a 403 Forbidden instead.
Truncate all geographical coordinates to max 4 decimals. There is not point asking for forecasts down to nanometer precision, and makes it impossible to cache data. While we previously have truncated the requests in the cache, this had to be done on a per-product basis. For new products we will instead implement this as a site-wide rule, where requests with 5+ decimals will return a 403 Forbidden.
Requests like /weatherapi/locationforecast/2.0/?lat=... have been deprecated. While they will continue working for a limited time, you should always use one of the endpoints above, preferably /compact.
Termination of old products
Locationforecast 2.0 will be officially launched on Wednesday 17 June 2020. At the same time version 1.9 will be deprecated. A final termination date has not been set yet, but we plan on turning it off before xmas.
The already deprecated LocationforecastLTS will terminate on 1 Sept 2020. This gives you almost three months to port your applications to Locationforecast 2.0, if you havent already started.
UVforecast has been deprecated as UV data is now included in Locationforecast 2.0 JSON, and will also be terminated on 17 June.
We also expect to launch a version 2.0 of Nowcast in about a month, using FORTI and the same JSON format as Locationforecast.
Terms of Service
This is mainly a rewrite and clarification of the existing rules. While there is nothing radically new under the sun, the old TOS was confusing and badly organized, so many users missed vital points like User-Agent identification and started asking why they were being throttled. Hopefully this version should be clearer and more detailed.
The new TOS is still in draft state, but if you have any questions please let us know before we finalize it later this month.
Other products
There have been some minor changes to some specialized products:
verticalprofile
The "airquality" profile has been removed
airqualityforecast
New names of counties and municipalities according to the 2020 reform. E.g. "Buskerud/Røyken/Midtbygda/Røyken" has been changed to "Viken/Asker/Midtbygda/Røyken".
Hope you are all doing ok in these difficult times. Here at MET Norway it's
business as usual. Most of us are working from home, but since the API team
already did this for half the week there's not much difference. Here's a
summary of the changes so far this year:
End of Life'd products
The following products have been deprecated and will be removed on 15 May 1 June 17 June 2020:
The following have also been deprecated, probable EOL times as indicated:
New products
Locationforecast 2.0
Version 2.0 is nearing
completion, the only major feature missing is documentation. We have decided to
split the output into three different endpoints:
- default (new, plain vanilla JSON)
- compact (a lite version of JSON with less bloat)
- classic (good old fashioned XML, to be used responsibly)
Also, the unit for temperature has been changed in JSON from "C" to "celsius" to
conform with CF standards.
Weathericon 2.0
We are also happy to launch a new set of corresponding weather
icons. Unlike the former numerical
codes in 1.9, the 2.0 "symbol_code" variable is based on a mnemonic code and
correspond exactly to the icon filename (minus extension). All icons are
available in PNG, SVG and PDF formats, and can be downloaded as a gzipped TAR
archive:
In addition you can also get a table matching the new and old symbol
codes, as well as explanatory texts in
English and several variations of Norwegian:
Radar 2.0
Radar have been upgraded to version 2.0,
with new parameters, new areas, new sizes and a new projection. GIF animations
will still be producted for the time being.
Sigmets 2.0
The new version 2.0 delivers both
SIGMETS and AIRMETS, but now also includes wind shear warnings. You can now ask
for each type separately, but by default you will get all in the same response.
Also the long-standing bug where warnings would be included twice have finally
been fixed.
Sigcharts
This was previously part of Upperwindweather, but has now been launched as
a separate product.
Other changes
LocationforecastLTS
As mentioned last year we have deprecated the
LocationforecastLTS
product, which will be retired some time after we have launched the new
Locationforecast 2.0. In the mean time, the background model for the Nordic area
(MEPS) have been replaced with a new, improved model (CMEPS) which is run
every hour.
Unfortunately, some little used parameters are no longer present in the new
model, which means that some slight changes have been made to locationforecastlts:
- the parameter areaMaxWindSpeed was removed
- there will no longer be available time intervals backward in time
These changes are only be visible for the Nordic area (Norway, Sweden, Denmark
and Finland). The rest of the world (which uses the
EC model) remains unchanged.
Some of you may have noticed that about half of the municipalities in Norway got
new codes ("kommunenummer") this year. This was implemented in
MetAlerts this March. As you cannot
search on municipalites yet (only counties) rhis does not affect the API
interface, but if you are extracting kommunenr from the CAP files you should
search for both old and new numbers.
New backend
In March we changed the file storage backend for non-dynamic products. This
should result in faster response times and greatly reduce the occurence of
delivering stale data.
Future plans for 2020
- Icemap/2.0 (possibly with GeoJSON)
- Probabilityforecast/2.0, Nowcast/2.0 and Oceanforecast/2.0 in JSON formats
