API Overview

The Spire Weather API provides programmatic access to global weather data products. This guide covers authentication, the Base URL, and core concepts.

What Spire Weather Offers¶

Spire Weather is first of all a forecast provider; the products below are listed forecasts first, then the present-day and historical products.

Spire’s satellite-based Soil Moisture Insights (6 km, 500 m and 100 m surface soil moisture) are also served through this API. They have their own documentation site at developers.smi.spire.com; the Soil Moisture page here covers the endpoints.

Your API key is subscribed to a subset of these products, bundles, regions and time bundles. A request for something outside the subscription returns HTTP 403 with the list of values you can use.

Base URL¶

All API endpoints are relative to:

https://api.wx.spire.com

Authentication¶

An API Key is required for all requests. Include your key in the spire-api-key header:

curl -X GET 'https://api.wx.spire.com/forecast/point?lat=40.0&lon=-105.0' \
  -H 'spire-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY'

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.wx.spire.com/forecast/point",
    params={"lat": 40.0, "lon": -105.0},
    headers={"spire-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY"},
)
data = response.json()

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.wx.spire.com/forecast/point?lat=40.0&lon=-105.0",
  { headers: { "spire-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY" } }
);
const data = await response.json();

Response Format¶

All API responses are returned as JSON (except file downloads). A typical response includes:

{
  "meta": {
    "unit_system": "si",
    "forecast": "Spire SOF-D Forecast",
    "units": {
      "air_temperature": "degreeK",
      "wind_speed": "m/s",
      "precipitation_amount": "mm"
    }
  },
  "data": [...]
}

meta.units lists the unit of every field in data[].values, so you never have to infer units from the unit system alone.

Available Endpoints¶

The API is organized into the following categories:

Common Parameters¶

Many endpoints share common query parameters:

Dates and Times¶

All timestamps sent to and returned by the API use ISO 8601 format. Times are in UTC unless you pass tz to the endpoints that support it.

Rate Limits¶

API requests are subject to rate limiting based on your subscription tier. If you exceed your rate limit, you’ll receive a 429 Too Many Requests response.

Error Handling¶

The API uses standard HTTP status codes:

Error responses come in three shapes, depending on which service answered.

A subscription (entitlement) error lists the values your key is allowed to use:

{
  "detail": "param: bundles requested: ['solar'] -- allowed: ['basic', 'maritime', 'solar-energy', ...] -- unallowed: ['solar']"
}

A validation error identifies the parameter and what was expected:

{
  "detail": [
    {
      "type": "enum",
      "loc": ["query", "status"],
      "msg": "Input should be 'active', 'inactive' or 'any'",
      "input": "all"
    }
  ]
}

Other errors carry a single message:

{
  "message": "No data found matching the request"
}

Next Steps¶

• Quick Start Guide - Make your first API call

• File Products Guide - Download forecast files

• API Reference - Complete endpoint documentation