/alerts
All currently active US, Canadian, and European alerts as issued by the National Weather Service (NWS), Environment Canada (EC), MeteoAlarm, Australian Bureau of Meteorology (AUSBOM), and the UK Met Office.
MapsGL
Customize and integrate high-resolution WebGL-based weather visuals and animations.
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Fast, interactive weather maps
MapsGL is a high-performance weather mapping SDK for building fully interactive, data-rich weather visualizations directly into your applications.
- 70 +
weather layers
- 360 °
globe view
- 10 +
rendering types for full visualization control
- 3 time horizons
historical, real-time, and forecast data
Smooth animations with precise control
MapsGL renders weather data client-side using modern graphics technology, enabling smooth animations, fast load times, and precise control over how data is displayed. Prebuilt weather layers such as radar, satellite, and forecasts integrate quickly, with full flexibility to customize styling, behavior, and user experience.
MapsGL turns complex weather data into intuitive, responsive visual experiences. It is designed for teams that need production-ready weather maps without sacrificing performance, control, or developer efficiency.
- Real-time data querying
- Timeline-based animation
- Observed and forecast datasets
Build your weather story
Getting started with MapsGL requires an active Xweather Weather API and Maps subscription and integration with one of the following third-party mapping libraries: Mapbox GL, MapLibre, Google Maps, or Leaflet.
Client-side rendering
MapsGL renders weather data entirely in the browser, giving complete control over how it is visualized and presented.
Real-time data queries
Quick and easy access to all the data driving map visualizations. Map coordinates retrieve all data at a given location from all active data sources and layers.
Efficient data loading
No need to load static map tiles for every zoom level. Data is only loaded up to the maximum resolution of the data source.
Fully customizable weather visuals
WebGL technology renders from the data rather than imagery files, so display properties can be adjusted on the fly to match any application's requirements.
See MapsGL in action
Xweather Live is an online application built with the Weather API and MapsGL products.
Switch layers, customize colors and animations, explore a variety of weather focus views, and test the Phrases API chat.
View as a flat map or a 360° globe.
70+ weather layers
/lightning-all
Aggregated cloud-to-ground and intracloud lightning flashes. This layer is a composite layer that is a combination of the following layers: lightning-flash, lightning-strikes
/convective
Provides information on potential severe weather, including thunderstorms, tornadoes, damaging high winds, and hail as issued by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC).
/road-weather-surface-us
Depicts the condition of the road surface, such as dry, moist, wet slush, snow, or ice in the contiguous US. Road weather data is currently available for the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
/hail-threats
Hail nowcast providing current and forecast hail threat areas. This layer is a composite layer that is a combination of the following layers: hail-threats-polygons, hail-threats-tracks, hail-threats-points
All layers
The MapsGL SDK includes a variety of preconfigured weather layers you can quickly add to your maps. The built-in weather layers are already configured with default styles, but you can fully customize their appearance.
Popular weather layers
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Wind
Surface wind speeds and direction depicted by particles moving in a vector flow field
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Snow depth
Snow depth on the ground
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Cyclones
Track tropical cyclones
Try out layer styles
Customize color ramps, opacity, particle density, and animation speed across any weather layer.
Adjust styling on the fly
No data reloading
Preview changes in real time
Wizard
Interactive map app wizard
A fully functional, feature-rich interactive map application that can serve as a weather dashboard or be integrated into custom weather applications.
Start building with MapsGL
Build weather apps and maps with a free weather API key.
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Your full weather stack
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MapsGL
MapsGL leverages WebGL for smooth, visually beautiful, data-encrypted weather animations optimized for low-bandwidth use.
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Weather API
The most unique datasets in the market, backed by high-resolution, real-time data from a globally distributed proprietary infrastructure.
Integration tools
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Raster Maps
Raster Maps is a tile-mapping tool ideal for still-image weather visualizations, offering 100+ layers compatible with basemap providers such as Mapbox, Google Maps, and Leaflet.
Get started
Toolkits & SDKs
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Phrases API
Turn complex weather data into natural language summaries, real-time insights tailored to your audience.
Get started
Reference
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Xweather MCP
The Xweather MCP Server connects LLMs directly to Xweather's data platform. Simply ask a question and the model will fetch all relevant Xweather data to provide an answer that blends the model's extensive knowledge with the precision of our high quality datasets.
Supported agents
Frequently asked questions
The MapsGL SDKs make it easy to visualize real-time weather and geospatial data, animate it over time, and style it to match your brand or UX. Core concepts include map controllers, data sources, layers, and animation timelines, providing a structured way to manage multiple data feeds and overlays in a single map.
Using MapsGL requires an active Xweather Flex subscription that includes the MapsGL, API, and/or Maps services. This applies across the JavaScript SDK and the native SDKs, ensuring your applications can access the necessary data and mapping capabilities under a single account.
The quickest path on the web is to follow the MapsGL Getting Started guide, then use the Xweather JavaScript SDK to initialize a map with your chosen mapping strategy such as MapLibre or Mapbox. As an example, you can create a feature‑rich Interactive Map App with just a configuration object that specifies the strategy, base style, zoom level, and initial weather layers. For native apps, you can start from the Android or Apple MapsGL SDK demo projects, which show how to add interactive weather maps to your app and adapt them to your own UX.
Raster Maps provides server‑rendered PNG tiles and static images that you overlay on existing maps. It is ideal when you want simple tile URLs or static images that “just work” with mapping libraries and GIS tools. MapsGL takes a data‑first approach: instead of pre‑rendered tiles, the client receives encoded weather and geospatial data that is rendered in real time. This enables smooth time‑series animation, dynamic styling, and rich interaction that would be difficult or impossible with static tiles alone.