Weather — entry 013 of 31
Meteorologisk Institutt
MET Norway's Weather API is a government-funded service offering more than 40 meteorological products, from general-purpose location forecasts to marine, aviation, and volcanic-ash data. It requires no API key - only a unique, identifying User-Agent header - and is recognized as a UN-listed digital public good.
MET Norway's Locationforecast product turns the institute's own numerical weather models into a compact JSON timeseries for any latitude/longitude — no signup, but every request must self-identify.
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<a href="https://greatapis.com/api/meteorologisk-institutt/"><img src="https://greatapis.com/badge/meteorologisk-institutt.svg" alt="Scored 77 on greatapis.com"></a>Auth quickstart
- No API key — instead, every request must carry an identifying `User-Agent` header naming your app or domain plus a contact email or site link (e.g. `yourapp.com support@yourapp.com`)
- Unidentified or generic User-Agents (or clients that ignore the caching rules below) risk being throttled or blocked without warning, per MET Norway's Terms of Service
Your key is stored only in this browser (localStorage) and sent directly to the API — never to greatapis.
Compact location forecast for a coordinate
GEThttps://api.met.no/weatherapi/locationforecast/2.0/compact?lat=59.91&lon=10.75
User-Agent: yourapp.com support@yourapp.com
{
"type": "Feature",
"geometry": {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [10.75, 59.91, 3]
},
"properties": {
"meta": {
"updated_at": "2026-07-26T01:30:10Z",
"units": {
"air_pressure_at_sea_level": "hPa",
"air_temperature": "celsius",
"cloud_area_fraction": "%",
"precipitation_amount": "mm",
"relative_humidity": "%",
"wind_from_direction": "degrees",
"wind_speed": "m/s"
}
},
"timeseries": [
{
"time": "2026-07-26T01:00:00Z",
"data": {
"instant": {
"details": {
"air_pressure_at_sea_level": 991.4,
"air_temperature": 14.6,
"cloud_area_fraction": 0.3,
"relative_humidity": 76.6,
"wind_from_direction": 206.0,
"wind_speed": 4.9
}
},
"next_1_hours": {
"summary": { "symbol_code": "clearsky_night" },
"details": { "precipitation_amount": 0.0 }
},
"next_6_hours": {
"summary": { "symbol_code": "clearsky_day" },
"details": { "precipitation_amount": 0.0 }
},
"next_12_hours": {
"summary": { "symbol_code": "fair_day" },
"details": {}
}
}
}
]
}
}Developer reference
https://api.met.no/weatherapiNo hard cap for light use, but over 20 requests/second per application (not per client) requires special agreement; heavier traffic risks throttling
Gotchas & limits
- MET Norway's Terms of Service require an identifying User-Agent with app/domain name and contact info on every request — this is documented policy, not something the client enforces up front with a 4xx
- Honor the response's `Expires` and `Last-Modified` headers: cache locally and send `If-Modified-Since` on the next request instead of polling on a fixed schedule — the terms call out sawtooth traffic patterns (e.g. hourly-on-the-dot requests) as something to avoid
- Coordinates should be truncated to 4 decimal places; MET Norway's documented policy is that newer products return 403 Forbidden for 5+ decimals, though a longer coordinate on `locationforecast/2.0` did not reproduce that live during testing
- `next_1_hours`/`next_6_hours`/`next_12_hours` blocks only appear on some timeseries entries and each covers a different lookahead window — don't assume every entry has all three