Observations

Overview

Observation products report measured current conditions. Current conditions bring US temperature and dew point to the current minute along the short-range model trend, and fall back to the forecast only where nothing has been measured; both are labelled in every response.

Current conditions (/observations/current/) return what the weather is doing now at any coordinate on Earth: temperature, dew point, humidity, feels-like, wind and gusts, visibility, pressure, sky cover and ceiling, present weather, and a weather code with display text ("Mostly Sunny", "Light Rain", "Blizzard"). Values come from the nearest representative weather station report (in the US, within 150 m of the point's elevation), or in the US and its territories from a 2.5 km observation analysis anchored by nearby stations. Every response says which station or analysis supplied each value, how far away it is and how old it is. In the US, temperature and dew point are carried forward to the current minute along the short-range model trend, with the measured values kept alongside. When nothing close enough has reported in the last 75 minutes, the point gets the forecast hour nearest the current time, clearly labelled source: "forecast"; pass observed_only=true to get a 404 instead. Wind and gusts are the same values as Current wind below, with wind saying which source supplied them. A station within 5 km of the point keeps its own reported wind unless the grid is over 40 minutes newer than its report; otherwise the station or analysis wind is used only when that grid is unavailable or over 40 minutes older than the station report.

The weather code uses the same table as the FLASH Edge weather_code, so one icon set covers both. /forecast/point/?include=current returns the same block alongside the forecast in one call. Both need Observations access, except that a widget key also gets include=current; a forecast-only key gets a 403.

Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (/observations/wbgt/) is the heat-stress metric used by athletic associations, the military and occupational safety programmes, which accounts for humidity, wind and solar radiation rather than air temperature alone.

Current wind (/observations/wind/) returns sustained wind, gust and direction for any point in the world, every 15 minutes. It starts from a surface analysis or a global model blend for the current time and corrects it toward nearby quality-controlled station observations, so the value is for your site rather than the nearest airport. As in station reports, a gust is given only when it is at least 10 knots above the sustained wind.

Typical uses

Leading a forecast page or widget with "now", station-backed conditions for media and enterprise feeds, verifying what actually happened at a site. For heat stress: athletics and practice-cancellation policy, occupational heat-illness prevention, military training thresholds, and any programme operating against a published WBGT flag scale. Current wind serves go/no-go calls on wind limits: crane and lift operations, golf and event venues, school districts and aviation ground handling.

Operations