Weather observations and forecasts interest open data users
A large part of the Finnish Meteorological Institute's data is available as open data. Through the open data services of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, it is possible to search for, observe, and download data produced by the Institute in machine-readable form and free-of-charge.
In cooperation with Spatineo, the Finnish Meteorological Institute examined the impact of open data, its use volumes, and customers' wishes. The survey covered data for 2018.
In 2018, more than 325 million data queries were conducted on the open data of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, which means approximately 900,000 queries per day and 625 queries per minute. The queries are distributed evenly throughout the day. In the summer, the number of queries is clearly higher than in the winter.
The most popular content was weather related time series. The most popular data were weather observations, HIRLAM surface forecast, lightning observations, and weather radar images. More than three quarters of the queries concerned the three most popular data. All data on offer had been searched for at least dozens of times.
The survey also examined, which sectors the users of the Finnish Meteorological Institute's open data came from. More than 60% of the users could not be identified, but about 80% of the identified users came from companies and about 6% from public administration. The rest of the users were individual users, or from universities and organisations. The sector analysis was conducted based on the IP addresses of the queries.
User experiences were also surveyed
In connection with the survey, an additional inquiry was carried out to map the needs of the open data users. More than 1,300 responses were received.
One in four respondents indicated that they use the data of the Finnish Meteorological Institute together with other open data. Other common sources of data included: Materials of the Finnish Environment Institute, the National Land Survey of Finland, the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, Helsinki Region Transport and Rescue Services. New business activities, based on open data, was reported by 54 companies.
Based on the survey, the greatest demand for new data is regarding meteorologist's forecast, radar forecast, observations in the Nordic countries, observations in inland waters, citizens' observations and climate change scenarios.
Open data is used without registration
At present, the Finnish Meteorological Institute's open data is used without registration. The open data is now more easily available without an API key, at:
https://opendata.fmi.fi/wfs (Download service - WFS)
https://openwms.fmi.fi/geoserver/wms (Viewing service - WMS)
Registered users should switch over to the new address by the end of 2019 in order to use the service. Addresses that include the API key of the Finnish Meteorological Institute will not be operational after 2019.
The open data online service of the Finnish Meteorological Institute has made it possible to search for, observe, and download information produced by the Institute in machine-readable form since 2013. The machine-readable data is available under terms set in the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Further information:
Main Architect Roope Tervo, Finnish Meteorological Institute, roope.tervo@fmi.fi, tel. + 358 40 575 2720