[api.met.no] Maintenance period and new products

[api.met.no mailing list]

Dear API users,

the next two weeks we will be doing network upgrades which may result in 
intermittent slower performance. We are also exited to bring you two new 
products – an updated version of Nowcast and the return of the Geosatellite 
image service.

Maintenance
-----------

During the periods 6th-8th and 13th-15th this month we will be upgrading our 
datacenter network hubs. During this period we will be running with reduced 
capacity for a few hours each day around midday UTC. In addition performance 
will be somewhat slower due to rebuilding of caches and distributed storage 
systems. Some heavy requests (e.g. available lists) may result in timeouts, 
but we hopefully do not expect any downtime.

Nowcast 2.0 beta
----------------

After the very successfull update to our Locationforecast service, we have 
now upgraded Nowcast to a similar modern spec. New features include:

- a new JSON format, very similar to Locationforecast
- radar precipitation coverage extended from only Norway to include Sweden,
   Finland and Denmark (currently only northeastern parts)
- real-time corrected temperature forecasts for the whole MEPS area, see
   https://docs.api.met.no/doc/locationforecast/datamodel

https://api.met.no/weatherapi/nowcast/2.0/documentation

While some parts are still missing (documentation, JSON Schema, radar data 
for the rest of Denmark) it is currently useable enough that you can 
familiarize yourself with the new data format and start upgrading your 
clients. Currently we do not have any estimate for how long the current 0.9 
version will be supported.

Geosatellite images
-------------------

After having been unavailable for two years due to licencing issues, we have 
finally resolved the situation. Unlike previously when only a small subset 
was available, we are now able to offer you the whole range of EUMETSAT 
image products under the CC BY 4.0 license.

With over 4000 different images at any one time this also means that the 
complete available list is very large and may result in timeouts. We 
therefore urge you to filter this on your specific requirements, e.g. area, 
type and size.

https://api.met.no/weatherapi/geosatellite/1.4/documentation

Future works in progress
------------------------

We are currently working on updating our Oceanforecast service to the new 
JSON standard. We have also started on a new project for improving our map 
services (as seen on Yr.no). During our cooperation with the University of 
Oslo we have gotten valuable feedback from students regarding map 
integrations on mobile app development, but we are also very interested to 
hear from web developers what kind of maps you would like to see and which 
protocols and formats you would like to see supported.

If you have any feedback, please send us an email at weatherapi-adm at met.no 
with the subject "Map feature requests". We will later collate this and use 
for planning new map products which hopefully should be available next year.

Have a great weekend, and stay safe!

Geir Aalberg
API developer
MET Norway