UK rainfall and weather radar data sources compared
Tipping-bucket gauges resolve sub-daily rainfall: EA telemetry publishes 15-minute totals. Storage and daily gauges provide daily totals, usually for a 09:00–09:00 GMT rainfall day in the UK. Weather radar composites, including Met Office UK composite and Nimrod products, estimate rain rate from reflectivity; check whether each product is gauge-adjusted. HadUK-Grid and CEH-GEAR interpolate gauge records onto 1 km grids, with daily and monthly products; gridding smooths point extremes. Keep forecasts separate from observations. Keep design rainfall (FEH depth-duration-frequency estimates) separate from observed records. Check time step, accumulation period, units (mm for totals), time zone, missing values and quality flags. Confirm the responsible body: EA in England, NRW in Wales, SEPA in Scotland, DfI Rivers in Northern Ireland; the Met Office operates UK-wide observation and radar networks. Check licence and commercial-use terms: many sources use the Open Government Licence, while some forecast services require a key or paid tier.
Showing 24 of 24 matching sources from the build-time catalogue snapshot, capped at 40. Half the places are reserved for each publisher group; unused places go to the other group. Each section is ordered by the existing evidence score and catalogue tie-breaks. Sponsored listings and placeholders are excluded. Bulk imports are excluded. Scores describe catalogue evidence, not fitness for a particular site.
Selection requires recorded UK coverage or coverage of a UK nation; global coverage alone is not treated as confirmation. Check each listing’s evidence and upstream terms: enrichment may be inferred, and Unknown means the catalogue has no clear value. Wrappers provide access to upstream data, not an independent survey or monitoring network.
Connect to TerraMCP to use sources marked live via the router. Availability here records an implemented adapter, not a live service-health check.
Lesser-known sources
Independent and other sources not classified as government or regulator publishers. “Lesser-known” is a discovery grouping, not a measure of popularity.
| Source | What it gives | Coverage & cadence | Access / API / format | Licence / commercial use | Live via TerraMCP router | Evidence score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wetterdienst mcp | observations (weather and climate, 22 national services); hydrology (EA England, Eaufrance France, WSV Germany, IMGW Poland); DWD MOSMIX/DMO forecasts; DWD radar; DWD weather alerts (CAP warnings) with GeoJSON geometry; DWD road weather and derived indices; NOAA GHCN daily and hourly (worldwide); station metadata and history Resolution: 1 minute to annual (across providers) | Coverage: 22 national services; UK via EA (England, hydrology) and Met Office (UK, MIDAS Open observations); NOAA worldwide Record period: varies by service; archives reach back centuries where the service keeps them Cadence: Unknown | Access: Open source, MIT licence (per ENTRY metadata); no server auth (ENTRY auth null); some upstream providers need an API key (AEMET, DMI, KNMI, met.no) or a CEDA account (Met Office) Authentication: Unknown Formats: CSV; JSON; Excel; Parquet; Zarr; GeoJSON | Licence: MIT Commercial use: Unknown | No | 54/100 |
| HadUK-Grid (CEDA) dataset | monthly rainfall; daily rainfall; monthly max/mean/min air temperature; daily max/min air temperature; daily mean temperature; monthly sunshine; days of ground frost; days of air frost; days of rain >1mm; days of rain >10mm; summer days (daily tmax > 25); days of lying snow; relative humidity; mean sea level pressure; vapour pressure; mean wind speed; long-term climatological averages; regional averages (UK countries, admin regions, river basins) Resolution: 1 km grid (native), with 5, 12, 25 and 60 km gridded versions and regional area averages | Coverage: UK Record period: 1836 to 2025 in latest release (v1.3.2.ceda); start year varies by variable, from 1836 to 1971 Cadence: Annual (new version each year; latest v1.3.2.ceda released June 2026, covering data to end 2025) | Access: Free and open under Open Government Licence v3; ENTRY lists download and OPeNDAP via CEDA with no authentication Authentication: Unknown Formats: NetCDF | Licence: free (OGL) Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | No | 47.6/100 |
| International Precipitation Radar data api | precipitation radar estimates; UK composite rain rate radar output; Finland hourly 1-hour, 12-hour and 24-hour precipitation accumulations Resolution: Finland: hourly accumulations (1-hour, 12-hour, 24-hour); spatial resolution and UK temporal resolution not stated | Coverage: United Kingdom and Finland (initially) Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Public, anonymous HTTPS/S3 access via data.source.coop; licence: see product README (not stated in DOCS) Authentication: Public; anonymous HTTPS/S3 access via data.source.coop Formats: Icechunk | Licence: see product README Commercial use: Unknown | No | 40.9/100 |
| si.fourzerotwo/environment mcp | UK river levels and rainfall, bathing waters, flood warnings, weather, earthquakes and the GB… Resolution: Unknown | Coverage: United Kingdom Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Unknown Authentication: Unknown Formats: Unknown | Licence: Unknown Commercial use: Unknown | No | 16/100 |
Known sources: Government and regulators
| Source | What it gives | Coverage & cadence | Access / API / format | Licence / commercial use | Live via TerraMCP router | Evidence score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EA Flood Monitoring API data api | flood warnings and flood alerts; flood areas; water level and flow measurements; monitoring station information; rainfall Resolution: Water levels and flows usually sampled every 15 minutes (temporal); spatial resolution not stated | Coverage: England Record period: Unknown Cadence: Readings usually every 15 minutes; data transferred to the Environment Agency typically once or twice per day, more often during heightened flood risk | Access: Free open data; no authentication or registration; Open Government Licence (version 3 per licence URL in docs); attribution statement requested Authentication: No authentication Formats: JSON; RDF/XML; Turtle; CSV; HTML (browser view) | Licence: Open Government Licence 3.0 Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | Yes Tools: flood_find_stations; flood_get_readings; flood_list_warnings; rainfall_stations; rainfall_latest; tide_stations; tide_readings | 93.8/100 |
| EA Rainfall API (flood-monitoring) data api | rainfall depth (mm) from tipping bucket raingauges, 15-min accumulated totals; rainfall station metadata (reference, location, measures); rainfall readings (latest, today, date range, since); station lookup by parameter, text search, or lat/long radius Resolution: 15-minute accumulated totals (temporal); station locations rounded to a 100m grid (spatial) | Coverage: England Record period: Unknown Cadence: Typically transferred once or twice per day | Access: Free and open; no registration; Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL-3.0) Authentication: none Formats: JSON; CSV; RDF/XML; Turtle | Licence: OGL-3.0 Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | Yes Tools: rainfall_stations; rainfall_latest | 91.2/100 |
| EA Hydrology API data api | river flow 15-min instantaneous (m3/s); river flow daily mean/min/max (m3/s); river level 15-min instantaneous (m); river level daily min/max (m); rainfall 15-min total (mm); rainfall daily total (mm); groundwater level dipped (mAOD); groundwater level logged, sub-daily (mAOD); water quality 15-min instantaneous: dissolved oxygen (% and mg/L), fDOM (RFU), blue-green algae (RFU), turbidity (NTU), chlorophyll (µg/L), conductivity (µS/cm), temperature (°C), ammonium (mg/L), nitrate (mg/L as N), pH Resolution: typically 15 min (sub-daily) and daily | Coverage: England Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: No authentication (per catalogue); free; Open Government Licence 3.0 Authentication: No authentication Formats: JSON; CSV; GeoJSON; HTML; RDF/XML; Turtle | Licence: Open Government Licence 3.0 Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | Yes Tools: ea_hydro_series; ea_groundwater_stations | 77.2/100 |
| NRFA API data api | daily river flow time series (per gauging station); station metadata (id, name, grid reference, lat/long, river, location, station level, catchment area); gauged daily flow statistics (mean, min, max, Q95/Q50 and similar percentiles, base flow index); peak-flow statistics (QMED, peak-flow start/end dates); catchment descriptors (elevation percentiles, land cover LCM 1990-2023, geology permeability, FEH descriptors, urban extent); catchment SAAR rainfall (1941-1970 and 1961-1990 standard periods) Resolution: Daily time series per gauging station | Coverage: UK: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland gauging networks Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Free, no API key or authentication currently; use governed by NRFA Data Terms and Conditions (licence) Authentication: No controls currently; NRFA terms apply Formats: JSON (json-object); CSV (nrfa-csv); FEH data (feh-data); FEH CSV (feh-csv); HTML | Licence: NRFA Data Terms and Conditions Commercial use: Unknown | Yes Tools: nrfa_station_info; nrfa_get_timeseries | 75/100 |
| FEH Web Service dataset | catchment descriptors; catchment rainfall DDF (FEH22, FEH13, legacy FEH99), catchment average; catchment boundaries (ESRI shapefile); point soil and climate descriptors (XML); point rainfall DDF (FEH22, FEH13) Resolution: Catchment DDF at nearest 1 km grid location; point data accurate to 1 m | Coverage: UK (England, Scotland & Wales, Northern Ireland); catchments above 0.5 km² and any mapped point Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Paid subscription: pay-as-you-go credits with discounts for prepaid bundles (ENTRY: auth subscription, licence Commercial). Educational and research use has no DDF charge, with a £150 (ex VAT) set-up fee and 1,000 initial credits. Authentication: subscription Formats: XML; CSV; CD3; ESRI shapefile; PNG; interactive graph export (CSV or image) | Licence: Commercial Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | No | 72.2/100 |
| SEPA KiWIS time series API data api | hydrometric data; live and historical environmental observation data Resolution: high resolution (spatial and temporal resolution not stated) | Coverage: Scotland Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Open data under Open Government Licence 3.0 (OGL-3.0), no registration required; API access key optional for enhanced data access Authentication: none Formats: Unknown | Licence: OGL-3.0 Commercial use: Unknown | Yes Tools: sepa_stations; sepa_series; sepa_values | 69.9/100 |
| Met Office Weather DataHub data api | atmospheric model data (GRIB2 parameters); site-specific weather forecast; global spot data; National Severe Weather Warnings Service (NSWWS); land observations; map images Resolution: Unknown | Coverage: Worldwide per docs; entry metadata lists United Kingdom and Global Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Registration required; free and paid plans; API credentials issued on subscription; governed by Met Office Weather DataHub Terms and Conditions Authentication: api key (datahub.metoffice.gov.uk) Formats: GRIB2 | Licence: Met Office terms Commercial use: Unknown | No | 69.5/100 |
| SEPA Time Series API data api | Scottish hydrometric river level, flow and rainfall time series via the KiWIS API. Resolution: Unknown | Coverage: Scotland Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Unknown Authentication: No key for normal access; key for bulk access Formats: Unknown | Licence: Open Government Licence 3.0 Commercial use: Unknown | Yes Tools: sepa_stations; sepa_series; sepa_values | 66.8/100 |
| Met Office MIDAS Open (CEDA) dataset | historic station rainfall Resolution: Unknown | Coverage: United Kingdom Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Free CEDA account required; licence OGL-3.0 (per catalogue entry metadata) Authentication: free account Formats: Unknown | Licence: OGL-3.0 Commercial use: Unknown | No | 64.3/100 |
| Met Office Climate Data Portal data api | HadUK-Grid Resolution: Unknown | Coverage: United Kingdom Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: No authentication required; licence OGL-3.0 Authentication: none Formats: Unknown | Licence: OGL-3.0 Commercial use: Unknown | No | 62.5/100 |
| Daily and sub-daily hydrometeorological and soil moisture data (2013-2025) [COSMOS-UK] dataset | radiation (short wave, long wave, net); precipitation; atmospheric pressure; air temperature; wind speed and direction; humidity; soil heat flux; soil temperature (point sensors at depth); soil volumetric water content (point sensors at depth); COSMOS field-scale volumetric water content (daily); snow water equivalent (daily, derived); potential evapotranspiration (daily, derived, Penman-Monteith); quality control flags Resolution: 30-minute for site sensor data; daily for COSMOS VWC, snow water equivalent and potential evapotranspiration. Point-sensor sites; COSMOS VWC is field-scale. | Coverage: UK, 51 monitoring sites Record period: 2013-01-01 to 2025-12-31 (metadata temporal extent; description says observations from October 2013) Cadence: Raw data sent to UKCEH hourly. This is a versioned release (latest version covers 2013-2025, publication date 2026-07-09); release cadence is not stated. | Access: Open Government Licence. Scripted bulk download (wget/curl) requires a personal access token sent as a Bearer header; payment terms not stated. Authentication: Unknown Formats: CSV | Licence: Open government licence Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | No | 54.4/100 |
| Dimensionless hyetographs and statistics of annual-maximum rainfall events in Great Britain, from historical rain gauge records dataset | event rainfall hyetographs (cumulative rainfall time series per storm); AMAX rainfall totals for 5, 10, 15, 30-min and 1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 24-hr durations; event summary statistics and associated AMAX totals Resolution: Sub-hourly rain gauge observations (point gauges). Metadata lists 'Spatial resolution 10 metres', which is unclear for point data, so treat with caution. | Coverage: Great Britain (~1,300 rain gauges across England, Wales and Scotland) Record period: Ends 2018-06-30; start varies by gauge (median record length 19 years) Cadence: Unknown | Access: Free download from the NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre under the Open Government Licence; no authentication listed in entry metadata Authentication: Unknown Formats: CSV; ZIP (whole-dataset download) | Licence: Open government licence Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | No | 52.4/100 |
| Paired rainfall and high-flow event timeseries, statistics, and extraction method for 1203 stations and catchments in Great Britain recorded during 1990-2016 [U dataset | paired rainfall and high-flow events (174,450); rainfall statistics and runoff signatures (63); event extraction procedure for paired rainfall-high-flow time series Resolution: Spatial 1000 m; temporal 15 minute | Coverage: Great Britain (1203 river gauging stations and their upstream catchments) Record period: 1990-01-01 to 2016-12-31 Cadence: Unknown | Access: Open Government Licence; EIDC download. Scripted bulk download uses a personal access token (Bearer). Authentication: Unknown Formats: CSV; R script; PNG | Licence: Open government licence Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | No | 52.3/100 |
| Gridded estimates of hourly areal rainfall for Great Britain 1990-2016 [CEH-GEAR1hr] v2 dataset | hourly areal rainfall (1 km gridded estimates, Great Britain); distance from grid point to closest recording raingauge (quality indicator); design-storm flag (quality indicator) Resolution: 1000 m (1 km) spatial grid; hourly temporal resolution (rainfall accumulated in the previous hour) | Coverage: Great Britain Record period: 1990-01-01 to 2016-12-31 Cadence: Unknown | Access: Free download under the Open Government Licence (OGL); bulk download via the EIDC datastore, with scripted (wget/curl) examples that use a Personal Access Token Authentication: Unknown Formats: NetCDF | Licence: Open government licence Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | No | 52.1/100 |
| Met Office Weather DataHub data api | GRIB2 atmospheric model data (sub-setable by region, parameter, level, time step, model run); global and UK deterministic NWP forecasts; global and UK ensemble forecasts; site-specific spot forecasts (hourly, 3-hourly, daily); site-specific blended probabilistic forecasts; National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS) warnings; UK land surface observations (hourly); PNG map images (surface temperature, precipitation rate, total cloud cover, MSL pressure) Resolution: 2 km (UK deterministic); 10 km (global deterministic); site-specific spot data is for a single point | Coverage: UK and global Record period: Unknown Cadence: Warnings updated as they are issued, updated, cancelled or expire; forecast run cadence not stated in docs | Access: Registration and subscription via Weather DataHub; free tier or paid plans (per metadata); API calls metered by daily request limits; data plans metered in GB; licence: Met Office Weather DataHub Terms and Conditions Authentication: Unknown Formats: GRIB2; GeoJSON; Atom Syndication (NSWWS warnings); PNG; JSON | Licence: free tier / paid Commercial use: Unknown | No | 43.7/100 |
| CEH-GEAR gridded rainfall dataset | daily gridded areal rainfall; monthly gridded areal rainfall Resolution: 1 km (1000 m) spatial; daily and monthly temporal | Coverage: Great Britain and Northern Ireland, plus approximately 3000 km2 of catchment in the Republic of Ireland Record period: 1890-01-01 to 2019-12-31 Cadence: Unknown | Access: Free under the Open Government Licence (OGL) via EIDC download; the scripted bulk download example uses a personal access token Authentication: Unknown Formats: NetCDF | Licence: free (OGL) Commercial use: Yes (docs-verified) | No | 42.3/100 |
| Plynlimon research catchments dataset | river network; digital terrain model; soils; meteorology; river flow; hydro-chemistry; rainfall; cloud; vegetation map; soil parent materials; catchment boundaries; elevation contour lines; spot heights; sub-daily meteorology and river flow observations (1968-2010); high-frequency hydrochemistry Resolution: Sub-daily temporal resolution for the meteorology and river flow dataset; spatial resolution not stated | Coverage: Plynlimon research catchments, headwaters of the River Severn and River Wye, uplands of mid-Wales Record period: Monitoring ongoing since 1968; sub-daily met and flow dataset covers 1968-2010 Cadence: Unknown | Access: Non-Open Government Licence (per entry metadata); no authentication listed Authentication: Unknown Formats: Unknown | Licence: Non-Open government licence Commercial use: Unknown | No | 41.9/100 |
| CHESS-met driving data dataset | daily mean air temperature; daily temperature range; specific humidity; wind speed; downward longwave radiation; downward shortwave radiation; precipitation; air pressure Resolution: 1000 m spatial (OSGB 1936 / British National Grid); daily time step | Coverage: Great Britain Record period: 1961-01-01 to 2019-12-31 Cadence: Unknown | Access: Free licence per catalogue entry; download from EIDC; licence terms and conditions apply; scripted download needs a personal access token (Bearer) Authentication: Unknown Formats: NetCDF | Licence: free Commercial use: Unknown | No | 41.3/100 |
| Continuous measurements of rainfall (2002-2007) [LOCAR] dataset | Continuous measurements of rainfall from the Frome Piddle; Pang Lambourn and Tern catchments, recorded between 2002 and 2007. Continuous recording rain gauges were installed at six sites in these catchments to record 15 minute rainfall data for differing periods at the varying sites. The instruments were installed as part of the NERC funded Lowland Catchment Research (LOCAR) Programme to provide comparable baseline rainfall data across the LOCAR catchments. Resolution: Unknown | Coverage: England Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Unknown Authentication: Unknown Formats: Unknown | Licence: Open government licence Commercial use: Unknown | No | 37.5/100 |
| UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) meteorology data: 1991-2015 dataset | Meteorology data from the UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) terrestrial sites. Variables measured include albedo (ground and sky), temperature (dry bulb, wet bulb and soil (at 10cm and 30cm)), relative humidity, radiation (net. and solar), rainfall, surface wetness, soil moisture, wind direction and wind speed. These data are collected by Automatic Weather Stations at all of ECN's terrestrial sites using a standard protocol. They represent continuous hourly records from 1991 to 2015. ECN is Resolution: Unknown | Coverage: United Kingdom Record period: Unknown Cadence: Unknown | Access: Unknown Authentication: Unknown Formats: Unknown | Licence: Open government licence Commercial use: Unknown | No | 37.5/100 |
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