Radar & nowcast

The next 60 minutes of rain

Our radar shows not only where it is raining right now, but also where precipitation is likely to move in over the next 10, 30 or 60 minutes. To do that we combine radar data from 14 countries into a seamless Europe mosaic and run it through our own nowcast algorithm.

Go to the live radar → How the nowcast works

Nowcast: precipitation at +10, +30 and +60 minutes over Europe

14Countries in the EU mosaic

5 minUpdate cycle

60 minNowcast horizon

WebPLossless tiles

First the basicsWhat weather radar actually is

A weather radar sends short microwave pulses into the sky and measures what is scattered back. Raindrops, snowflakes and hail reflect these pulses — the larger and denser they are, the stronger the echo. That produces the familiar colourful picture: blue = light precipitation, green = moderate, yellow/red = heavy, violet = extreme.

Every country runs its own radar network. Spain (AEMET), Germany (DWD), France (Météo-France) — each with its own hardware, formats and update rates. Anyone who wants a Europe-wide picture has to assemble these pieces themselves. That is exactly what we do.

Our Europe mosaic

14 national radar networks in one map

Fetch data

Every 5 minutes we pull raw radar composites from 14 national weather services.

Reproject

Each country delivers a different projection. We transform everything into one uniform grid.

Merge

At borders, values are blended with weighting so no hard edges appear.

WebP tiles

The mosaic is rendered into WebP tiles and delivered to your device instantly.

Our nowcast also distinguishes between rain and snow.

Latest data per country

Live from the mosaic — when each country last delivered

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Refreshes automatically every five minutes. Times in your local time.

And in the USA

Radar for North America

Not just Europe: for the USA we integrate the national radar mosaic MRMS from NOAA. It covers the mainland, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Caribbean — at around 1 km resolution and updated every minute.

The US radar shows more than just rain: it distinguishes rain, snow and hail and even estimates the hailstone size. And just like in Europe, a nowcast delivers the next 60 minutes here too. On the map you can switch between Europe and the USA at the top.

Nowcast or forecast — what is the difference?

In brief

“Nowcast” is a blend of now and forecast — the forecast for right now and the very near future, usually a few minutes up to about two hours.

A classic weather forecast uses physical models to compute days ahead — on a large scale and with a long lead time. A nowcast does the opposite: it takes what the radar sees right now and extrapolates the motion to the minute. For “will that shower still catch me in 20 minutes?” it is therefore more accurate than any model — for “what will the weather be like the day after tomorrow?” you need the classic forecast.

The nowcastHow we know where the rain will be in 30 minutes

Imagine watching a rain cloud from your window. You can see which way it is moving and how fast — and you can estimate fairly well whether it is about to catch you. That is exactly what a nowcast does, only for the whole of Europe and in 5-minute steps.

The trick: we compare the current radar image with the preceding ones. From the motion of all precipitation areas we extrapolate where they will be in 10, 20, 30 … up to 60 minutes. We rely not only on the plain displacement — but also on how structures grow, decay or rotate.

How accurate is our nowcast?

Measured against real radar data – one weekend over Germany and Spain

We check our nowcast against reality: the forecast made 15, 30 and 60 minutes earlier is compared with what the radar actually measured afterwards. The result: for widespread rain, the direction of travel for the next half hour is very good – on a par with established scientific methods. The further ahead and the smaller a single thunderstorm cell, the fuzzier it gets.

**Germany – rain front** — A rain band moves eastward. Our nowcast for 30 minutes later places the position and the heavy core almost exactly.

**Galicia – heavy Atlantic rain** — Even with intense frontal rain the direction of travel is right – structure and centre of gravity are in place half an hour ahead.

**Catalonia – summer thunderstorms** — The hard case: isolated storm cells. The broad direction is right, but with convection the detail gets fuzzier – shown here honestly.

Hit rate = share of the area where it actually rained that the nowcast captured. Measured against the real radar data; individual examples, not the average across all weather situations.

What a nowcast cannot do

Honestly

A nowcast is not a weather forecast. It only extrapolates what the radar currently sees. Three limits you should know:

New cells: showers that do not yet exist cannot be “invented” by our algorithm either.
Accuracy drops over time: usually very good at +10 min, only a rough tendency at +60 min.
Convection stays hard: individual thunderstorm cells sometimes change completely within 15 minutes.

Try it for yourself

Live radar with nowcast right on the map — including lightning and a time slider.

Go to the live radar → Back to overview

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