Data sources and licences
Last updated 2026-10-08
MeteoKite is built on open data. The table lists every dataset shown on the site, its licence and the attribution it requires; the short forms also appear under the maps and in the page footer.
| Used for | Source | Licence | Attribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forecasts, weather maps, model alerts | NOAA Global Forecast System (GFS), 0.25° Processed by MeteoKite (interpolated, derived quantities, colour maps, alerts). NOAA does not endorse MeteoKite. | Public domain (U.S. Government work) | Weather data: NOAA GFS |
| Weather maps for the USA (selectable) | NOAA High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR), 3 km, hourly runs Moved by MeteoKite to a 0.03° latitude/longitude grid (each cell takes the nearest HRRR point, nothing interpolated). NOAA does not endorse MeteoKite. | Public domain (U.S. Government work) | Weather data: NOAA HRRR |
| Weather maps for Canada and the northern USA (selectable) | Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) High Resolution Deterministic Prediction System (HRDPS), 2.5 km, runs every 6 hours Moved by MeteoKite from the model's rotated grid to a 0.04° latitude/longitude grid (each cell takes the nearest HRDPS point, nothing interpolated); winds turned to true north. ECCC does not endorse MeteoKite. | Environment and Climate Change Canada Data Servers End-use Licence | Data Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada |
| Weather maps for France and neighbours, and for the French Antilles (selectable) | Météo-France AROME — France 0.01° (≈ 1.3 km) and 0.025° (≈ 2.5 km), AROME Outre-Mer Antilles 0.025° (≈ 2.5 km); runs every 3 hours Changed by MeteoKite: derived quantities and colour maps, drawn on the models' own latitude/longitude grids; each map names the run it comes from. Météo-France does not endorse MeteoKite. | Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab) | Weather data: Météo-France |
| Weather maps for the UK, Ireland and neighbours (selectable) | Met Office UKV (UK deterministic model), 2 km; short runs (54 hours) at 00, 06, 09, 12, 18 and 21 UTC, longer runs (120 hours) at 03 and 15 UTC Contains Met Office data; modified (regridded and rendered into maps) by MeteoKite: moved to a 0.02° latitude/longitude grid, derived quantities and colour maps; each map names the run it comes from. The maps and values MeteoKite derives from UKV are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 as well. The Met Office does not endorse MeteoKite. | Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) | © Crown copyright, Met Office |
| Airport reports (METAR, TAF) | NOAA Aviation Weather Center Measured, shown as reported with the raw text; each report shows its age, reports older than 90 minutes are dimmed. Not for flight planning — use official aviation weather. | Public domain (U.S. Government work) | Observations: NOAA Aviation Weather Center |
| Buoys | NOAA National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) | Public domain (U.S. Government work) | Observations: NOAA NDBC |
| Airport names and positions | OurAirports open data | Public domain (released by OurAirports) | Airport data: OurAirports |
| Official weather warnings for Germany (alerts page, banner, place pages) | Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) open data — official warnings in CAP format, per district, every 5 minutes Shown unchanged: headline, description, instruction, severity and times as issued (English edition). Changed by MeteoKite only in form: CAP converted to JSON, district outlines joined per warning and simplified by about 5 m for the map, sorted into our filter categories. If the feed is more than 20 minutes old, the warnings for Germany are shown as "can't check", never as an old list. MeteoKite shows no model alerts for Germany while this feed is used. | GeoNutzV / CC BY 4.0; district outlines © GeoBasis-DE / BKG | Source: Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD); © GeoBasis-DE / BKG (Daten modifiziert) |
| Weather maps (ICON models, selectable); waves in Europe (ICON-EWAM) | Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) open data — ICON global (13 km), ICON-EU (Europe, 7 km), ICON-D2 (Germany, 2.2 km); ICON-EWAM European wave model (~5 km) Changed by MeteoKite: ICON global interpolated from the icosahedral model grid to a 0.125° grid; derived quantities and colour maps for all three; for ICON-EWAM wave power from the wind sea and swell, wind components from speed and direction. | DWD open-data terms of use (source attribution required) | Datenbasis: Deutscher Wetterdienst, bearbeitet |
| Weather maps (ECMWF model, selectable), waves, ocean currents and sea temperature | European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) open data — IFS high-resolution forecast (0.25°), wave model (WAM) and coupled ocean Changed by MeteoKite: derived quantities (humidity, precipitation per step, wave power), sea temperature from the skin temperature over ice-free open water, colour maps. ECMWF does not endorse MeteoKite. | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) | Contains modified ECMWF open data (CC BY 4.0) |
| Tidal currents and sea temperature on the weather map (and currents, waves where downloaded) | Copernicus Marine Service — Global Ocean Physics and Waves Analysis and Forecast (GLOBAL_ANALYSISFORECAST_PHY_001_024, GLOBAL_ANALYSISFORECAST_WAV_001_027), 1/12° Changed by MeteoKite: shown on the model’s own 1/12° grid; speeds derived, colour maps. Neither the European Union nor Mercator Ocean International is responsible for any use of the information. | Copernicus Marine Service licence (free, also for commercial use, with attribution) | Generated using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information |
| Air quality, pollen, ozone layer, aerosol, dust and CO₂ on the weather map and in the forecast | Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) — global atmospheric composition forecasts and global greenhouse-gas forecasts (ECMWF), and European air quality forecasts (ensemble, 0.1°, including pollen) Changed by MeteoKite: units converted (µg/m³ at 25 °C, Dobson units, ppm), the US Air Quality Index computed with the EPA breakpoints from the forecast concentrations — an estimate, not an official AQI. Pollen in grains per m³ as forecast by the CAMS European ensemble. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use of the information. | Copernicus licence (free, also for commercial use, with attribution) | Contains modified Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service information |
| Aurora on the weather map | NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) — OVATION Prime aurora forecast | Public domain (U.S. Government work) | Aurora: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center |
| Active fires on the weather map | NASA FIRMS — VIIRS (Suomi NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21) and MODIS near-real-time active fire detections (LANCE) Changed by MeteoKite: low-confidence detections left out; the strongest fire per 0.1° cell shown. | NASA Earth science data: free and open use, with acknowledgement | Fire data: NASA FIRMS |
| Satellite page: Americas, Atlantic, Pacific (GOES-East, GOES-West) | NOAA GOES-19 and GOES-18 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), cloud and moisture imagery, via NOAA Open Data Dissemination Processed by MeteoKite: mosaicked with the other satellites, corrected for the sun’s angle and Rayleigh scattering, colour composites. NOAA does not endorse MeteoKite. | Public domain (U.S. Government work) | Satellite: NOAA GOES-East/West |
| Satellite page: East Asia, Australia, West Pacific (Himawari-9) | Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) Himawari-9 Advanced Himawari Imager, via NOAA Open Data Dissemination Processed by MeteoKite as for GOES. | JMA terms of use for Himawari data (redistributed by NOAA) | Himawari-9: JMA (via NOAA) |
| Satellite page: Europe, Africa, India (Meteosat-12, Meteosat-9) and lightning over Europe and Africa | EUMETSAT — Meteosat-12 (MTG) Flexible Combined Imager and Lightning Imager, Meteosat-9 SEVIRI (Indian Ocean) Processed by MeteoKite as for GOES; lightning binned to 0.05° cells. Raw data files are not offered for download. | EUMETSAT data policy: our own images are shown at least one hour after the scan (real-time use needs a licence); lightning shown in real time | Contains modified EUMETSAT Meteosat data 2026 |
| Lightning (maps and satellite pages) | NOAA GOES-19/18 Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) and EUMETSAT Meteosat-12 Lightning Imager (LI) Flashes binned to 0.05° cells; the 24-hour density per km². No coverage over East Asia and Australia (no geostationary lightning imager there). | GLM: public domain (U.S. Government work); LI: EUMETSAT data policy (free) | Lightning: NOAA GOES GLM; contains modified EUMETSAT Meteosat data |
| Waves on the weather map (waves, swells, wind waves, wave power) | NOAA NCEP GFS-Wave (WAVEWATCH III), global 0.25° Processed by MeteoKite (wave power derived, colour maps). NOAA does not endorse MeteoKite. | Public domain (U.S. Government work) | Weather data: NOAA GFS-Wave (WAVEWATCH III) |
| Weather maps (WRF model, selectable over India) — experimental | MeteoKite WRF: a Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model run produced by the MeteoKite team, 12 km over India Shown only with a trial-forecast notice. Do not use it for decisions concerning safety, health, property, travel or business; consult the India Meteorological Department (IMD) or your national meteorological service. | Produced by MeteoKite; trial forecast, not officially validated | MeteoKite WRF (experimental trial forecast) |
| Rain radar (Germany) | Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) open data — precipitation scans of the German radar network Changed by MeteoKite: clutter and attenuation corrected, sites combined into a composite, rain rates and totals derived. | DWD open-data terms of use (source attribution required) | Datenbasis: Deutscher Wetterdienst, bearbeitet (processed by MeteoKite) |
| Base map (land, water, roads, borders, labels) | OpenStreetMap, as vector tiles built with Protomaps | Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0; map style © Protomaps (BSD-3-Clause) | © OpenStreetMap contributors · Map style: Protomaps |
| Place names and search | GeoNames Changed by MeteoKite: indexed and combined with postcodes and country data. | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) | Place names: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) |
| Relief shading | Terrain Tiles (Mapzen, AWS Open Data) — from SRTM, GMTED2010, ETOPO1 and other sources Changed by MeteoKite: shaded once into our own relief tiles (land only); heights of points are read from the original tiles. | Open data; attribution to the underlying sources | Terrain: Mapzen / AWS Terrain Tiles |
| Satellite base map | EOxCloudless 2016 — Sentinel-2 cloudless mosaic by EOX IT Services GmbH Cloud-free 10 m true-colour imagery from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites (ESA / EU). | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) | EOxCloudless https://cloudless.eox.at by EOX IT Services GmbH (Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016) |
| Country borders for visitors in India | Natural Earth — admin-0 countries, India point of view | Public domain | Borders: Natural Earth |
Software: MapLibre GL JS (BSD-3-Clause), Next.js (MIT), FastAPI (MIT), ecCodes (Apache-2.0), NumPy (BSD-3-Clause) and other open-source libraries under their own licences.