Azure Maps Weather service frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Azure Maps is built in collaboration with world-class mobility and location technology partners, including AccuWeather, which provides the underlying weather data. To read the announcement of Azure Maps collaboration with AccuWeather, see Rain or shine: Azure Maps Weather service will bring insights to your enterprise.

AccuWeather has real-time weather and environmental information available anywhere in the world, largely because of their partnerships with many governmental weather agencies and other proprietary arrangements. A list of this foundational information is provided below.

• Publicly available global surface observations from government agencies
• Proprietary surface observation datasets from governments and private companies
• High-resolution radar data for over 40 countries/regions
• Best-in-class real-time global lightning data
• Government-issued weather warnings for over 60 countries/regions and territories
• Satellite data from geostationary weather satellites covering the entire world
• Over 150 numerical forecast models including internal, proprietary modeling, government models such as the U.S. Global Forecast System (GFS), and unique downscaled models provided by private companies
• Air quality observations
• Observations from departments of transportation

Tens of thousands of surface observations, along with other data, are incorporated to create and influence the current conditions made available to users. These surface observations include not only freely available standard datasets, but also unique observations obtained from meteorological services in many countries/regions, such as India, Brazil, Canada, and other proprietary inputs. These unique datasets increase the spatial and temporal resolution of current condition data for our users.

These datasets are reviewed in real time for accuracy for the Digital Forecast System, which uses AccuWeather's proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms to continuously modify the forecasts, ensuring they always incorporate the latest data and, in that way, maximize their continual accuracy.

Many weather forecast guidance systems are used to formulate global forecasts. Over 150 numerical forecast models are used each day, both external and internal datasets. These models include government models such as the European Centre ECMWF and the U.S. Global Forecast System (GFS). Also, AccuWeather incorporates proprietary high-resolution models that downscale forecasts to specific locations and strategic regional domains to predict weather with further accuracy. AccuWeather's unique blending and weighting algorithms have been developed over the last several decades. These algorithms optimally apply the many forecast inputs to provide highly accurate forecasts.

Weather service coverage varies by country/region. All features aren't available in every country/region. For more information, see Azure Maps Weather service coverage.

Current Conditions data is updated at least once an hour, but can be updated more frequently with rapidly changing conditions - such as large temperature changes, sky conditions changes, precipitation changes, and so on. Most observation stations around the world report many times per hour as conditions change. However, a few areas will still only update once, twice, or four times an hour at scheduled intervals.

Azure Maps caches Current Conditions data for up to 10 minutes to help capture the near real-time update frequency of the data as it occurs. To see when the cached response expires and avoid displaying outdated data, use the Expires header in the HTTP response.

Daily and Hourly Forecast data is updated multiple times per day, as updated observations are received. For example, if a forecasted high/low temperature is surpassed, our Forecast data will adjust at the next update cycle. Updates happen at different intervals but typically happens within an hour. Many sudden weather conditions may cause a forecast data change. For example, on a hot summer afternoon, an isolated thunderstorm might suddenly emerge, bringing heavy cloud coverage and rain. The isolated storm could effectively drop temperature by as much as 10 degrees. This new temperature value will impact the Hourly and Daily Forecasts for the rest of the day, and as such, will be updated in our datasets.

Azure Maps Forecast APIs are cached for up to 30 minutes. To see when the cached response expires and avoid displaying outdated data, use the Expires header in the HTTP response. Update data as needed based on your product use case and UI (user interface).

Yes. This behavior is expected. The Current Conditions API returns the most recent cached observation for a location. It is not a time-series archive.

During the spring-forward transition, the API can temporarily return a cached observation whose timestamp falls within the skipped hour. This happens because responses can be cached for up to 10 minutes, and LocalObservationDateTime reflects the observation time, not the API request time.

As the cache refreshes with newer observations after the transition, the returned timestamp reflects the updated time and DST offset.

No. The Current Conditions API returns the most recent observation for a location and is not a time-series archive. It does not return two separate records for the repeated hour.

Instead, the response reflects whichever cached observation is returned at the time of the API call. Around the transition window, the timestamp can appear to repeat or move backward as the cache refreshes within the 10-minute cache window. This behavior is expected.

To determine which side of the transition an observation belongs to, examine the UTC offset in LocalObservationDateTime. This field is returned in ISO 8601 format and includes the offset from UTC.

Before the fall-back, the offset reflects daylight saving time (for example, UTC-4 for Eastern Daylight Time). After the transition and once the cache refreshes, the offset reflects standard time (for example, UTC-5 for Eastern Standard Time).

No. Azure Maps Weather APIs require geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude).

If you have a city name or address, first use an Azure Maps Search API to geocode the location, and then pass the resulting coordinates to the Weather API.

Azure Maps Weather service is a paid service with usage-based billing. Pricing includes a monthly allowance of free transactions, but there is no unlimited free tier.

Rate limits are enforced as queries per second (QPS), not as hourly quotas. For current limits, see Azure Maps QPS rate limits. For pricing details, see Azure Maps pricing.

The Azure Maps Web SDK provides a services module. The services module is a helper library that makes it easy to use Azure Maps REST services in web or Node.js applications by using JavaScript or TypeScript. To get started, see Use the Azure Maps services module.

The Azure Maps Android SDK is no longer supported. To integrate Azure Maps Weather services into Android apps, refer to The Azure Maps Android SDK migration guide.

This behavior is expected. The API can return multiple records for the same alert type when records differ in one or more attributes, such as area, time window, priority, or status.

Each returned record represents a distinct alert instance, even if the description is the same.

No. The Severe Weather Alerts API is point-based and accepts coordinates as input.

If you provide a coordinate, the service returns alerts that intersect that point. To monitor a larger region, query multiple representative points.

There is no single definitive global list. Alert names and categories vary by country/region and by the official weather agency providing the source data.

Because providers can introduce new alert types over time, applications should treat values such as alert category and description as data-driven fields rather than relying on a fixed enumeration.

Yes. To learn how to migrate radar and infrared satellite tiles to the Microsoft Power BI visual, see Add a tile layer to Power BI visual.

The Weather service in Azure Maps article includes a guide to help interpret colors used for radar and satellite tiles. The article covers color samples and HEX color codes.

Yes. In addition to real-time radar and satellite tiles, Azure Maps customers can request past and future tiles to enhance data visualizations with map overlays. Customers can call the Get Map Tile v2 API or request tiles via Azure Maps web SDK. Radar tiles are available for up to 1.5 hours in the past, and for up to 2 hours in the future. The tiles are available in 5-minute intervals. Infrared tiles are provided for up to 3 hours in the past, and are available in 10-minute intervals. For more information, see the Show weather overlays on a map sample.

Yes. For icons and their respective codes, see the Weather service in Azure Maps article. Notice that only some Weather service APIs, such as Get Current Conditions, return the iconCode in the response.

The documented weather icons are reference assets. If you need a different visual style or higher-resolution icon set, use your own icon library and map it to returned iconCode values.

For more information, see the Get current weather at a location sample.

Next steps

If this FAQ doesn't answer your question, you can contact us through the following channels (in escalating order):

• The comments section of this article.
• MSFT Q&A page for Azure Maps.
• Microsoft Support. To create a new support request, in the Azure portal, on the Help tab, select the Help + support button, and then select New support request.

Learn how to request real-time and forecasted weather data using Azure Maps Weather service:

Azure Maps Weather service concepts article:

Explore the Azure Maps Weather service API documentation: