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Meteorological Service of Canada Open Data User Documentation

The Meteorological Service of Canada makes weather, climate, water and environmental data available to the private sector, academics, and the general public.

Available open data

Open data from the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) provides weather, environmental, water and climate information at various spatial and temporal scales in Canada and around the world for a variety of application domains. The main categories of data available are:

  • Weather warnings, current conditions and public forecasts
  • Meteorological, hydrological and environmental observations
  • Numerical weather and environmental prediction forecasts
  • Air quality data
  • Climate data from MSC and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)

To meet more targeted needs in key application areas, this data is also available by theme.

Data access

Access to open data available on the MSC Datamart and MSC GeoMet services is anonymous and free of charge. The available open data services are:

  • MSC GeoMet
    • API to access raw data and products
    • Visualize and animate weather data
    • Integrate data in web maps, mobile apps and desktop software
    • Geospatial web services to clip, reproject, convert format and more
  • MSC Datamart
    • Raw data and products available on a web accessible server
    • Real-time push notifications and data retrieval service
  • Cost-recovered services
    • Archived data retrieval
    • Dedicated data feeds with 24/7 support

Usage, tutorials and technical documentation

Usage and tools:

Tutorials:

Technical documentation:

Data discovery and metadata

Canadian Open Government Portal

The Meteorological Service of Canada's metadata is available on the Canadian Open Government portal, enabling users to search open data that is relevant to Canadians, learn how to work with datasets, and see what people have done with open data across the country.

WMO Information System (WIS)

The WMO Information System (WIS) enables discovery of authoritative meteorological and hydrological data and supports the collection of data and its exchange between World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Centres and their users. The "WIS Catalogue" describes the data and products available across WMO. Data and products are registered with the WIS by submitting a metadata record to the WIS Catalogue that describes the content, structure and access mechanisms for the associated data or product.

MSC is a WIS Data Collection or Production Centre (DCPC), and provides a Discovery, Access and Retrieval (DAR) service available at https://api.weather.gc.ca/wis/catalogue/csw. The DAR supports a number of search interfaces including OGC Catalogue Services for the Web (CSW), Search/Retrieval via URL (SRU), and the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) standard.

Events

Series of events organized around MSC open data:

Licence

The End-use Licence determines the conditions for using the data and information. The main requirement is to clearly acknowledge Environment and Climate Change Canada as the data source, please refer to the Licence for details.

MSC Open Data Service Usage Policy

The MSC Open Data Service Usage Policy determines what constitutes an acceptable use of MSC Open Data services and provides users best practices for optimal use. This Service Usage Policy complements the End-use licence.

Frequently Asked Questions

The most frequently asked questions about MSC's open data are collected in a FAQ. If you cannot find the answer to your question, please contact us.

Your opinion matters to us

In order for the Meteorological Service of Canada open data user documentation to meet your needs, please let us know what you think by answering this short questionnaire.

Contact us

User support is provided on a best effort basis during normal business hours. Users requesting support are invited to contact us.