[api.met.no] New versions of Sunrise, Turbulence and more

[api.met.no mailing list]

Dear API users,

while it's almost been six months since the last update, we have been quite 
busy and have several important announcements to make before the summer break.


Sunrise 3.0
===========

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


New avaiation products
======================

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


Changes to marine products
==========================

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:

- Bruravik (BRJ)
- Leirvik (LEH)
- Sirevåg (SIE)


Removal of the WeatherIcon service
==================================

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.


Odds and ends
=============

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)!

Regards,

Geir Aalberg
API developer