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Short-term forecast data ('nowcasting')

Nowcasting involves high spatial and temporal resolution forecasts of weather developments for the next few minutes and up to a maximum of six hours ahead. The forecasts are updated every 5 or 10 minutes taking into account the latest available observations.

The Meteoswiss nowcasting system is calculated every 5-10 minutes and consists of a continuous nowcasting integrating different information sources, covering Switzerland and the neighbouring regions. The horizontal resolution is 1km. The 6-hour interval includes the seamless combination of observed, extrapolated and predicted data from the deterministic run of the ICON-CH1-EPS numerical weather pediction model.

info

The current deterministic implementation (INCA-CH) only computes one ensemble member. A new generation of nowcasting systems is under development and is expected to be available by 2027. For this reason, only a subset of the current INCA-CH parameters will be made available through our open data provision, and a major migration change will have to be planned for 2027–2028, including a new set of output parameters, parameter names and parameter metadata. A parallel phase in which both the old and new systems are active will be ensured.

The following parameters are available:

Precipitation

  • Total precipitation (RP, 5 min values every 5 min, radar based precipitation product)
  • Precipitation type (NT, 5 min values every 5 min)
  • Snowfall (PN, 5 min values every 5 min)

Wind

  • Wind mean 10 m (FF_10min, 10 min values every 10 min)
  • Wind gust 10 m (WG_10min, 10 min values every 10 min)
  • Wind direction 10 m (DD_10min, 10 min values every 10 min)

Temperature

  • Temperature 2 m (TT, 10 min values every 60 min)
  • Dew point temperature 2 m (TD, 10 min values every 60 min)
  • Snowfall line (ZS, 10 min values every 60 min)
  • Zero degree Isotherm (Z0, 10 min values every 60 min)
  • Soil surface temperature (TG, 10 min values every 60 min)

Data download

The following example data files are available for download:

ParameterUpdate frequencyTime granularityExample data fileProductive version file nameEstimated volume per file (MB)
Total precipitation (RP)5 min5 minRP_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_RP_(date and time code).nc1-60
Precipitation type (NT)5 min5 minNT_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_NT_(date and time code).nc1-2
Snowfall (PN)5 min5 minPN_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_PN_(date and time code).nc1-40
Wind mean (FF_10min)10 min10 minFF_10min_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_FF_10min_(date and time code).nc60
Wind gust (WG_10min)10 min10 minWG_10min_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_WG_10min_(date and time code).nc60
Wind direction (DD_10min)10 min10 minDD_10min_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_DD_10min_(date and time code).nc60
Temperature 2 m (TT)10 min60 minTT_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_TT_(date and time code).nc13
Dew point temperature 2 m (TD)10 min60 minTD_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_TD_(date and time code).nc13
Snowfall line (ZS)10 min60 minZS_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_ZS_(date and time code).nc13
Zero degree Isotherm (Z0)10 min60 minZ0_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_Z0_(date and time code).nc13
Soil surface temperature (TG)10 min60 minTG_INCA_202106280700.ncogd-nowcasting_TG_(date and time code).nc13

Data format

The data format is NetCDF.

Coordinate system

The coordinate system is Swiss LV03 / EPSG 21781.

Metadata

Parameter metadata is part of each NetCDF-File. See example data files in the table above.

Data usage

Examples of INCA data reading and visualisation can be found here: jupyter notebooks.