[api.met.no] Locationforecast 2.0 launch and new Terms of Service

[api.met.no mailing list]

Dear API users,

hope you all are well during these difficult times. Today we are proud to 
present what is probably the most important update since the MET Weather API 
was launched back in 2007. We have also rewritten our Terms of Service to 
make it more understandable, and to clarify several important points.


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 you can find a description of the JSON format and the data model + 
parameters here:

https://metno.github.io/weatherapi-docs/doc/ForecastJSON
https://api.met.no/doc/locationforecast/datamodel

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

https://api.met.no/doc/TermsOfService


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".

That's all for now, stay safe and have a wonderful summer!

Geir Aalberg
API developer