AccuWeather's Future Radar API provides subscribers access to a weather forecast map overlay service via a simple RESTful web interface. This forecast service does not include a map of any type. It returns a series of graphics in square tiles for layering on top of an existing map to illustrate predicted weather conditions. Therefore, Future Radar is not a stand-alone service but is intended to be paired with a Mercator projection mapping service such as Bing Maps or Google Maps. Tiles are returned one at a time in PNG format.

Products

Different regions of the world have different systems and methods for gathering weather data. Because of this, the different regions all provide weather data at different intervals. For example, the United States and Asia might update more frequently than the EU and Indian Ocean regions. This update inconsistency will cause an uneven graphical representation on weather maps. If a user has the map zoomed out far enough that they can see both the United States and the European Union at the same time, the EU's weather graphics may appear to “jump” every few frames, while the US data continuously moves with each successive frame.

To remedy this situation our Future Radar system will examine each region of the world (called products) based on various properties. In our scenario it would be most helpful to identify all the products displayed on the user's map. Once those products have been identified, the Future Radar system can determine which product has the slowest data refresh rate, and then match all the faster products to that slower rate. This way the US will refresh at the same rate as the EU on the user's map. The result is a cohesive and graceful view of the world's weather.

Each product has a unique code that consists of two numbers separated by a dash. The first number is called the major value, and the second is the minor value. Both numbers are provided by any API response that identifies one or more products.

Note: Future Radar does not currently include Alaska or Hawaii.

Frames

Some endpoints will return a list of frames. Each frame has a temporal value and defines one set of radar tiles to be returned. The total time span encompassed by these frames will vary between products and are subject to change for each individual product. Future Radar will match all products within the viewing area to the time span of the product with the shortest time span. For example, the US might have a time span of one hour and fifteen minutes, while the EU might only have a time span of one hour. When the user has both the US and the EU within their viewing area, Future Radar will cut down the US frames to only cover one hour so the weather data for both regions will match.