Due to increased workload by the new 5 min radar interval, we have had to reduce the number of different images available. In short, generating GIF animations from existing static GIF images continues as before. However, due to the 50% increase in images and 33% shorter production window, generating animations from PNG is no longer possible and has been terminated. We apologize for the lack of advance notice, but we had not foreseen this would be a problem.
Since we know this will cause existing functionality to break, we've come up with a temporary solution where we substitute the missing animations with similar products. In most cases the pixel dimensions will be different, but this can be scaled in the browser. Also note that content=image and content=animation now will return totally different images, so be wary of using size=small for static thumbnails for the animations.
reflectivity_hires and rainrate_with_phase
All animations of type reflectivity_hires and rainrate_with_phase will be substituted with type reflectivity. Where radarsite indicates an area these will be identical, but single radars will be substituted to the closest area as per the following table:
| Old | New |
|---|---|
| andoya | nordland_troms |
| berlevaag | finnmark |
| bomlo | western_norway |
| hafjell | east_norway |
| hagebostad | southwest_norway |
| hasvik | finnmark |
| hurum | southeast_norway |
| rissa | trlagnordland |
| rost | nordland |
| somna | trlagnordland |
| stad | western_norway |
lightning
All requests for lightning animations (including the Radarlightning product) now return the "norway" image. All other animations have been terminated.
We have some images currently used internally which could be substituted for each individual area, but they are currently not available on the API. We will be working on a possible replacement later this summer.
"medium" and "large" size static images
The little used "medium" and "large" sizes have been terminated. All requests for these sizes now return the "normal" image. If you scale this in the browser it should not be noticable to the end users. This does not affect radarlightning which already uses only "normal" size.
Also, the small GIF animations haven't been produced for a long time and will be removed from the API. This means only the following variations will be available in the future:
| Content | Size |
|---|---|
| animation | normal (default) |
| image | normal (default), small |
Again, we're sorry for the inconvenience, but hopefully the faster radar scan rate should compensate for the reduced size options.
Future changes
In closing, we will like to inform you that later this year we'll be releasing a new beta version of the Radar service, with a coherent set of areas and types which should be much more understandable than the current mess. Also, GIF animations will be replaced by Javascript, which should be much more user-friendly as you can then pause or jump forwards and backwards in time to see details.
We strongly suggest you consider dropping GIF animation as soon as possible,
since now that most partners are using Javascript or WMS we plan to phase
out GIF completely by the end of 2019 sometime during early 2020.