Legacy API

https://api.rainviewer.com/public/maps.json

Purpose and Description

The past weather radar map frames (2 hours), updates every 10 minutes.

Please do not guess timestamps. Use them from this API. One frame is generated for approximately 40 seconds. If you automatically generate the timestamp rounded to 10 minutes, your application will get 404 responses every 10 minutes for ~ 40 seconds. The reason is that the new map is still generated during that time.

Using Timestamps

Timestamps from the API above are used as a part of the URL - the {ts} part. All available URLs and their parameters are described below. To request the map data, use the https://tilecache.rainviewer.com/v2/ base URL.

URLDescription
radar/{ts}/{size}/{z}/{x}/{y}/{color}/{options}.pngRadar data: displays one tile with the composite radar reflectivity data, with specified size, color scheme, and additional options.
radar/{ts}/{size}/{z}/{latitude}/{longitude}/{color}/{options}.pngRadar data: the same as the link above, but with the center at specified coordinates (EPSG:4326) with the desired zoom size. Great for widgets.
composite/{ts}/{big_size}/{color}/{options}.pngComposite image with radar reflectivity for the entire world. Generates slowly, up to 10 seconds per image loads. Cannot be smoothed.
coverage/0/{size}/{z}/{x}/{y}.pngCoverage tile: where radar data is available (transparent areas) and where is not (black areas).
coverage/0/{size}/{z}/{latitude}/{longitude}.pngCoverage data as above but for specified center coordinates (latitude, longitude).
coverage/0/{big_size}.pngComposite coverage tile for the entired world at once. Generates slowly.

Examples

Please refer to the separate examples page.

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