The METAR / TAF archive

We offer online access to recent METAR and TAF reports—at least the last ninety days should always be available online—as well as our massive METAR and TAF archive, containing nearly every report for nearly every station in the world dating back to November 2008. This is well over half a billion reports and counting, making it to our knowledge the largest publicly available archive of its kind.

Recent records

Access to the METAR / TAF database containing reports for the last 90+ days is free of charge via the Recent METAR/TAF section of our site.

On each request, up to 100 records will be returned for each combination of ICAO identifier and report type (METAR or TAF). In order to access more records you must adjust the dates accordingly—for reference, 100 reports is about three days’ worth of data for the busiest airports.

XMPP feeds

A very convenient way to keep track of weather at your home airport or usual destination is to use your regular XMPP-based chat service, such as Quicksy or Blabber. From your chat application, add a contact such as zzzz@wx.navlost.eu (where zzzz stands for the ICAO identifier for the airport of your choice) to receive METAR and TAF reports for that location shortly after they are published. You may subscribe directly from the results page by clicking on the icon for the desired station.

RSS feeds

Another handy option is to use an RSS / Atom reader on your phone or computer.

Point your reader to https://navlost.eu/api/reports/metar/ZZZZ?format=application/atom+xml (where ZZZZ is your ICAO identifier of interest) to get the latest data, updated every five minutes. A link is also available from the results page when you make a data request.

Acceptable use

Within reason, it is OK to gather up as much data as you need for your own use. What you are not allowed to do is redistribute the data without acknowledging the source.

If you need regular or bulk access to the data, including search by coordinates, convenient API access may be arranged. Get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Screen scraping is specifically forbidden. The server logs are monitored for scraping attempts and you will be blocked without warning. We are not responsible for any loss this may cause to you or others.

Historical records

The online database often contains well above 90 days of data but for older records, or bulk requests, access to the full archive is provided via the Historical METAR/TAF section.

On that page, you may enter a list of ICAO identifiers and one or more date spans—the system will tell you how many reports we have available meeting your criteria and offer the possibility of making a request.

Access to the archive is not in real time: for performance reasons, requests are queued and processed multiple times a day—once processed, data is made available for download on the same page. You have the option of providing an email address to be notified when a request has been fulfilled, or you may just make a note of the address in your browser and come back to it after half a day or so (do note that each request has a unique URL).

Prices

Charges vary, but as a rule of thumb they’re around €1.- per 10,000 reports. For most locations, the first 30,000 reports are on the house, and we also waive charges for certain categories of users. Reports for African airports and for countries subject to EU or US economic embargoes are free of charge, though download limits may apply.

Payment is handled via Stripe. Upon request, we can set you up with a business account and invoice you at regular intervals.

Usage limits

Occasionally, people try making a series of separate requests in order to get around the free limit. This is not an oversight, the system allows you to make a small number of repeated requests that go above the limit as a convenience to users who would otherwise be prevented from accessing the data due to false positives. However, there are measures in place to prevent serious abuse. We may well decline to provide you with any data at all if we notice that you have tried to subvert the system, so please don’t. We also increase prices for locations subject to frequent abuse.

METAR processing and derived data

We are able to process METAR data and extract the information of interest for you. Get in touch for a quote.

Citations

In academic articles, reports and similar publications, data require citations just like any other source, to acknowledge the author and so that others may find the resource. You will find a button that conveniently allows you to download a citation reference.

If you require more guidance on how to cite datasets refer to your publisher or local institution. A number of online references are also available such as the MIT LibGuides.