Features
Global weather data from forecast to archive — free, no sign-up, one JSON API.
30+ Weather Models
Open-Meteo integrates numerical weather prediction models from over 15 national weather services, including ECMWF, DWD, NOAA, Météo-France, JMA, KMA, KNMI, DMI, MeteoSwiss, UK Met Office, BOM, CMA, and GeoSphere Austria.
The best_match option automatically selects the most suitable high-resolution model for any location. Individual models can also be selected directly, enabling model-specific workflows and comparisons.
Up to 1 km Resolution
The API selects the highest-resolution model available for each location. In Central Europe, France, Switzerland, the UK, and North America, high-resolution models at 1–2 km are used for the first few days of the forecast. Global models at 9–11 km cover the remainder of the forecast horizon worldwide.
All data is optimised to the requested coordinates and normalised to a consistent hourly time step, regardless of the native model resolution or output interval.
Frequent Updates
Most global models are updated every 6 hours. High-resolution regional models such as ICON-D2, HRRR, and AROME update every 1–3 hours. Each update ingests the latest observations from weather stations, radiosondes, aircraft, radar, and satellites.
15-minutely data is available for Central Europe and North America, interpolated from hourly model output elsewhere.
Multiple Historical Data Layers
Open-Meteo provides four distinct historical data products, each suited to different use cases:
- Weather reanalysis back to 1940 — climate analysis and long-range baselines
- Historical Forecast archive from ~2021 — seamless weather model time series matching the live forecast API
- Previous Runs API — continuous time series at a fixed lead-time offset of 1–7 days, from January 2024
- Single Runs API — archived individual runs from September 2025 (ECMWF IFS HRES from March 2024)
Specialised Forecasts
Beyond standard surface variables, the APIs provide: solar radiation (including global tilted irradiance for arbitrary panel orientation), wind at multiple altitudes (10 m to 300 m+), pressure levels (1000–10 hPa), soil moisture and temperature at multiple depths, ocean waves, air quality with pollen, and ensemble probabilistic forecasts.
Seasonal Forecasts
The Seasonal Forecast API provides ECMWF SEAS5 forecasts out to 9 months and sub-seasonal ECMWF EC46 forecasts out to 6 weeks, both at 36 km resolution with 51 ensemble members.
The ensemble spread represents uncertainty at these extended horizons. Data are not bias-corrected and should be interpreted as probabilistic area guidance — whether the coming weeks or months are likely to be warmer, colder, wetter, or drier than the climatological average.
Historical Weather Data for AI and Research
Training weather post-processing models, backtesting energy forecasts, and measuring weather model skill all require different types of historical data. Open-Meteo provides four complementary APIs covering distinct use cases.
Weather Reanalysis — back to 1940
Historical Weather API
ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) covers the globe at 9–25 km resolution with hourly data from January 1940 to the present. Unlike weather station data, reanalysis provides spatially complete, consistent coverage with no missing values.
This is the standard dataset for climate baselines, anomaly detection, long-range correlations, and training models where decades of labelled examples are needed. The API delivers data lightning-fast — a multi-decade time series for a single location returns in under 100 ms.
Historical Forecast Archive — from 2021
Historical Forecast API
The Historical Forecast API archives the initial hours of each weather model update into a seamless, continuously updated time series — the same data structure as the live Forecast API. This makes it directly comparable to real operational forecasts.
This is the right dataset when you need weather model output that is consistent with the live forecast for training bias-correction and post-processing models: the historical archive and real-time forecast use the same variables, units, and time alignment. Data is available for all models supported by the Forecast API.
Previous Model Runs — from January 2024
Previous Runs API
The Previous Runs API provides time-series data at a fixed lead-time offset from 1 to 7 days. Instead of returning individual runs in full, it returns a continuous time series where each value was forecast exactly N days in advance — e.g. a `_previous_day2` series contains only values taken from the run initialised 48 hours before valid time. Data is available from January 2024.
This makes it straightforward to compute systematic forecast error (bias) at each lead time, compare model skill across offsets, and build training datasets where the forecast horizon is a controlled variable.
Single Runs Archive — from September 2025
Single Runs API
The Single Runs API provides access to archived individual model runs, selected by their exact initialisation time via the run= parameter. Each run covers the full forecast horizon, typically 7–10 days. ECMWF IFS HRES at native 9 km resolution is available from March 2024 via hindcasts.
This is the correct dataset for: training weather post-processing models without look-ahead bias (each training sample is a single run paired with verifying observations); reconstructing the exact forecast available at a past decision time for energy trading or grid operation backtests; and run-level model intercomparison across providers.
Available APIs
All APIs share the same JSON format and parameter conventions. Switching between them requires only a change of hostname or endpoint.
Forecast API
Up to 16-day forecast
Hourly and daily weather forecasts for any global location. Returns temperature, wind, precipitation, solar radiation, soil variables, and more. Supports multiple models or automatic best-match selection. Past days parameter provides seamless access to recent history without switching endpoints.
Historical Weather API
ERA5 reanalysis since 1940
ERA5 and ERA5-Land data at hourly resolution from January 1940 to present. Global coverage at 9–25 km with no missing data. Used for climate analysis, anomaly detection, and as ground truth for training machine learning models.
Historical Forecast API
Weather archive from 2021
Seamless archive of weather forecast model output, built by continuously storing the initial-hours data from each model update. The format is identical to the live Forecast API, making it the standard dataset for training bias-correction and post-processing pipelines.
Previous Runs API
Fixed lead-time series from January 2024
Returns a continuous time series where every value was forecast at a fixed lead-time offset of 1–7 days. Available from January 2024. Suited for systematic bias analysis, lead-time-stratified ML training, and operational forecast skill assessment.
Single Runs API
Archived runs from Sept 2025
Access any individual archived model run by its initialisation time using the run= parameter. ECMWF IFS HRES at 9 km is available from March 2024. Required for bias-free ML training on (forecast, observation) pairs and for backtesting operational decision workflows.
Ensemble API
Probabilistic forecasts
Access ensemble forecasts from ECMWF IFS ENS, GFS ENS, ICON EPS, GEM EPS, and others, with up to 51 members and a 35-day horizon. Returns each member individually, enabling probability distributions, percentiles, and spread calculations.
Climate Change API
CMIP6 projections to 2050
CMIP6 climate model output downscaled to 10 km resolution and statistically bias-corrected against ERA5. Daily resolution from 1950 to 2050 under multiple emissions scenarios. Suitable for long-range climate risk assessment and adaptation planning.
Marine Weather API
Ocean wave forecasts
Wave height, period, and direction from global and regional ocean wave models. Covers open ocean and coastal areas, with forecasts updated every 6 hours.
Air Quality API
Pollution and pollen
Hourly forecasts for PM2.5, PM10, NO₂, O₃, SO₂, CO, dust, UV index, and pollen (grass, birch, alder) from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) with global and European coverage.
Flood API
River discharge forecasts
Ensemble river discharge forecasts from the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS), providing probabilistic flood guidance for rivers worldwide up to 30 days ahead.
Seasonal Forecast API
ECMWF SEAS5 out to 9 months
ECMWF SEAS5 seasonal forecasts to 9 months and EC46 sub-seasonal forecasts to 6 weeks, both at 36 km resolution with 51 ensemble members. Data are not bias-corrected and should be interpreted as probabilistic area guidance for anomaly direction, not as precise local values.
Satellite Radiation API
Observed solar radiation from 1983
Shortwave and direct radiation derived from geostationary satellite imagery rather than weather models. Sources include EUMETSAT CM SAF SARAH3 (Europe, Africa, South America, from 1983), JMA Himawari-9 (Asia, Australia, from 2015), and DWD MTG (Europe, Africa, from February 2026) at 2.5–5 km resolution with 10–30 minute intervals. Suited for solar energy yield analysis and forecast bias assessment.
Geocoding API
Place name to coordinates
Resolves city and place names to WGS84 coordinates, country, timezone, and elevation. Supports partial name search in multiple languages with ranked results.
Elevation API
Terrain height from coordinates
Returns terrain elevation in metres for any set of WGS84 coordinates using a 90 m resolution digital elevation model. Accepts batches of up to 100 coordinate pairs per request.
Low Latency
Weather data is stored on NVMe disks in columnar time-series format. A typical forecast request for a single location returns in under 10 ms. Historical requests spanning decades return in under 100 ms. Servers operate in Europe and North America.
Simple JSON API
All APIs use plain HTTP GET requests with query parameters and return JSON. No SDK or authentication is required for non-commercial use. Parameters are consistent across all endpoints: the same variable names, unit options, and output formats work everywhere.
CSV and XLSX output formats are also available. Multiple locations can be queried in a single request by providing comma-separated coordinate lists.
Stable API
APIs follow semantic versioning. Breaking changes are introduced only as new major versions, with the previous version kept available for a transition period. All changes are documented in the GitHub repository.
Get started
The API documentation covers all parameters with examples. For commercial use, see the subscription plans. Bug reports and feature requests go through the GitHub repository.