NOAA METAR Observations - Latest per Station, Per Record

The latest METAR aviation-weather observation for every reporting station worldwide (Canada excluded) as one clean, flat record - raw METAR text, station, time, coordinates, temperature, wind, visibility, pressure and flight category. Refreshed hourly.

What one record represents

The source is the NOAA/NWS Aviation Weather Center hourly METAR cache (aviationweather.gov). Each record is one station's latest observation: the raw METAR text, the ICAO station id, the observation time, coordinates and elevation, temperature and dewpoint, wind direction/speed/gust, visibility, altimeter and sea-level pressure, the flight category (VFR/MVFR/IFR/LIFR) and the METAR/SPECI type.

Coverage and volume

The cache holds the latest observation for about 4,530 non-Canada stations (live at build time: 4,953 total minus 423 Canadian). Because the cache refreshes hourly and stations report intermittently, the exact count fluctuates from hour to hour.

Sol's Wave-4 index put this door at 4,498 non-Canada stations (4,937 - 439 Canada); measured live at build time it is about 4,530 (4,953 - 423) - the count moves with the hourly cache, and the live figures are what this listing quotes.

The Actor downloads the hourly cache, drops the Canadian stations, and delivers a record per remaining station.

Licence and attribution

The data is a U.S. Government work in the public domain. The full notice travels on every record:

NOAA/NWS Aviation Weather Center. U.S. Government work in the public domain (17 U.S.C. 105) - no copyright; provided 'as is' with no warranty.

Person-data policy

METAR observations carry no personal data - they are machine and station weather reports. A per-record assertion rejects any contact/person field as a matter of form. No natural-person data is processed.

The Canada ban

Every station whose ICAO id starts with C (Canada) is structurally dropped - the row is never emitted. This is baked into the Actor, not a buyer option, and a planted-Canada test confirms no C-prefixed station reaches the output. The run receipt records how many rows were dropped by the filter.

Interpretation caveat

One record per station's latest METAR observation from the Aviation Weather Center hourly cache: raw METAR text, station, time, coordinates, temperature, dewpoint, wind, visibility, altimeter, sea-level pressure, flight category and elevation. Every station whose ICAO id starts with C (Canada) is structurally dropped. The cache refreshes hourly.

Values are reproduced verbatim from the cache; the Actor never rewrites a field. Numeric fields (temperature, wind, pressure, coordinates, elevation) are real numbers; visibility is kept as the source's verbatim string (e.g. "6+") because it is not always numeric. Each record is the latest observation for its station at fetch time - a live snapshot, not a history.

Provenance and compliance

Every run reads the door host's robots.txt at runtime; the gate result (URL, status, byte length and, where a policy is served, its SHA-256) is written to the run's RUN_RECEIPT. Where the host serves no robots.txt, the gate records that fact (flagged) and proceeds on the licence, which expressly grants re-use. The endpoint is keyless. The Actor never bypasses a block or fetches through a mirror.

Data quality and freshness

Boolean columns are delivered as real booleans and numeric columns as real numbers. Delivery is keyed on a stable id, so the dataset is safe to diff, deduplicate or upsert. Every run re-reads the live door, so the data is as fresh as the source publishes, and each record's observed_at stamp dates the snapshot. The run's RUN_RECEIPT records the source URL and how many records were delivered and charged, and confirms charge_equals_delivered.

Billing and delivery

Pricing is per record: you are billed only for records the Actor actually delivers, with the charge raised after each record is pushed (push-then-charge), so a failed or empty run costs nothing. The Maximum records cap bounds every run, so you control spend precisely - sample cheaply, then raise it. Because delivery is keyed on a stable id, re-running and upserting keeps a downstream table current without re-paying for rows you already hold; only new and changed records add cost, and every receipt reconciles delivered against charged.

Schema, typing and joins

Every record is a flat object with a fixed, typed schema: strings stay strings, numbers are parsed to real numbers, and booleans to real booleans, so the data loads into a warehouse or a dataframe without a cleaning pass. The record_id is a stable composite key, which means the dataset is safe to diff between runs, to deduplicate, and to upsert into a table you maintain over time. Because the identifiers the source uses are preserved verbatim, the dataset joins cleanly onto other sources keyed on the same identifier, and a scheduled run keeps the downstream copy current with no manual reconciliation - the new and changed rows simply upsert over the old ones, and the observed_at stamp on every record tells you when each was last seen live.

Inputs

• Maximum records (maxRecords) - hard cap on observation records delivered and billed.

Output

Records land in the Actor's default dataset and export as JSON, CSV, Excel or via the Apify API. A tabular overview surfaces station, observation time, temperature, wind, visibility, flight category and latitude.

Fields in detail

The record leads with raw_text, station_id, observation_time, latitude, longitude, then the weather values (temp_c, dewpoint_c, wind_dir_degrees, wind_speed_kt, wind_gust_kt, visibility_statute_mi, altim_in_hg, sea_level_pressure_mb), the flight_category, metar_type and elevation_m. The provenance block closes every record.

Typical uses

Aviation-operations and weather teams use this cell as a live global METAR snapshot - the latest conditions and flight category at every reporting station - refreshed hourly, ready to drop into a dispatch board or a weather screen. Because the flight category and winds are first-class fields, a filter surfaces every IFR station in a region at a glance. For a history rather than a snapshot, the fleet's NOAA ISD archive cell is the companion; for a per-call lookup, the fleet's Weather MCP is the tool.

A live snapshot, not an archive

This cell delivers the latest observation per station, refreshed from the hourly cache - a live picture of current conditions worldwide, not a time series. That is the right shape for a dispatch board or an operations screen, where what matters is the conditions right now. For history - the same stations over days, months or years - the fleet's NOAA ISD archive cell is the companion; for a single-station lookup on demand, the fleet's Weather MCP is the tool. The three cover the same domain at three grains: live snapshot, historical archive, and per-call tool.

Why the Canada ban

The cell is scoped to exclude Canadian stations (every ICAO id beginning with C), by design and baked into the Actor. The exclusion is structural - Canadian rows are dropped before delivery and never billed - and a planted-Canada test confirms none slips through; the run receipt reports how many rows the filter removed. The remaining coverage is global, spanning the roughly 4,500 non-Canada stations reporting at fetch time.

Reading the observation

flight_category (VFR/MVFR/IFR/LIFR) is the quick read on whether a station is flyable, derived by the source from ceiling and visibility; wind_dir_degrees/wind_speed_kt/wind_gust_kt give the wind; and altim_in_hg and sea_level_pressure_mb the pressure. The raw_text field carries the full coded METAR for anyone who wants to parse it further. Because the numeric fields are real numbers, a filter on flight category or wind speed surfaces the stations that matter to an operation at a glance, and the station id joins to any airport reference keyed on ICAO.

Sibling Actors

It sits beside the fleet's NOAA ISD hourly-observation archive (history vs live snapshot) and the fleet's Weather MCP server (per-call tool vs bulk snapshot). It shares its CSV engineering with the fleet's other records Actors.