Light up your app with the beautiful rain maps with 10 minute step API

Dry Valleys in Antarctica is said to be the driest location on our planet. A combination of low humidity and geography have kept this unique place rain-free for thousands of years. For all the other locations on our planet however, having a visual insight into the journey of rain can be useful in countless ways.

OpenWeather have released an easy-to-use, single-call API that lets developers overlay accurate visual rain data on a map. The Global Precipitation Maps - Forecast and Historical Data API can give historic, current, and forecast precipitation map overlays for a given time and tile location, anywhere on the globe. 

The data has a 10-minute step, less than 1Km resolution and zoom levels of between 3 and 7. Forecasts are available for the next six hours in the US (and globally for the next two). 

OpenWeather have produced a fully-functional interactive, global weather map with just a ten-minute step, using our API that can be found here. This is available for anyone to use, and is part of our continued commitment to increasing the awareness of weather data. 

The response of the API will be identical to the layer.

This OpenWeather’s Global Precipitation Map API achieves excellent accuracy through its use of global weather models, satellites, radars and NWP-ML technology.

A few words on potential use cases for this tool; On the roads, a study has shown that rain reduces the average traffic speed by up to 16% and is a factor in 10% of vehicle accidents. Having a visual map overlay can provide logistics organisations pre-warning of disruptive and potentially dangerous rainfall. Drivers can have the rain overlay incorporated into their navigation maps, and coordinators can pre-empt travel disruption, and re-plan deliveries. Short-term rain forecasts could be incorporated into the live operations maps of the bicycle food delivery industry, giving valuable insights to help prevent accidents -  and soggy pizza boxes.

Rain can affect communications in many ways; The phenomenon of ‘Rain Fade’ creates a reduced signal when microwave frequencies are absorbed by rain. Even the signal from a domestic satellite dish can be reduced by water droplets. Understanding the specific path of a rainstorm can help explain sudden losses in communications. 

Retail businesses are constantly striving to provide more creative customer care. Giving customers in a café, shop or gym accurate and visual rain maps can show how they really care about their wellbeing. The weather map API can also be used in conjunction with our One Call Minute forecast API to let the customer know when the rain is forecast to end. The historic rain map is available for the previous two days.

To gain access to the Global Precipitation Maps - Forecast and historical data API, simply contact our sales team, who will be happy to explain how to give your API key access.  If you do not already have an API key, one can be obtained here.

To use the API, the following parameters are required:

• Zoom level (from 3 to 7).

• Tile coordinates (please note the tile coordinates are not the same as latitude and longitude coordinates).

• Date and time in Unix format – To specify historic, current or forecast information.

• Your API key.

The full documentation of this API is available here.

Below is an example of an API call:

https://maps.openweathermap.org/maps/2.0/radar/forecast/6/13/24?&appid={API key}&tm=1600781400

The response, is a tile similar to the one below:

The OpenWeather Global Precipitation Maps - Forecast and Historical data API can give you a valuable insight into the rain, wherever you may be.