Topography and Land Usage

Elevation | Topography Deviation | Land Usage | Roughness Length | Shadow | Water Bodies

Elevation

Gives the elevation in meters above sea level. If source is set to a specific model, the model topography with the according resolution is returned. If no model or mix is selected, the topography from NASA SRTM/ASTER with a horizontal resolution of approximately 90 meters is returned.

elevation:m

Examples

  • The depicted area is located in the Swiss canton "Wallis" and its most famous mountain, the "Matterhorn", is encircled in the right image. A terrain map of the corresponding region is also shown for more intuitive comparison (Map data: Google, August 2017):

    https://api.meteomatics.com/2024-04-24T18:00:00Z/elevation:m/46,7.3_45.5,7.8:0.001,0.001/html

    Matterhorn
    Elevation

  • To obtain the data in a different output format, just replace the format parameter in the URL by one of the following:
    csv, json, xml, png, html, netcdf.
    Here is an example for the csv format:
    https://api.meteomatics.com/2024-04-24Z/elevation:m/46,7.3_45.5,7.8:0.1,0.1/csv
    validdate;2017-07-02 18:00:00
    parameter;elevation:m
    data;7.3;7.4;7.5;7.6;7.7;7.8
    46;2606;3157;2588;3297;2394;2672
    45.9;2300;3063;1912;2504;2586;3334
    45.8;1105;2763;1699;1317;1665;2390
    45.7;1283;1971;1294;2353;1028;2641
    45.6;2796;2032;2776;2106;1086;369
    45.5;2890;2848;1265;2190;1881;792
    

Topography Deviation

The deviation in topography of the specified weather model compared to the NASA SRTM/ASTER measured elevation.

model_topo_deviation:m

Examples

Land Usage

Examples

Roughness Length

Roughness length of the ground, depending of the land usage. Roughness length is a parameter of some vertical wind profile equations that model the horizontal mean wind speed near the ground; in the log wind profile, it is equivalent to the height at which the wind speed theoretically becomes zero.

roughness_length:m

Examples

  • https://api.meteomatics.com/2024-04-24T18:00:00Z/roughness_length:m/46,7.3_45.5,7.8:0.5,0.5/json
    {"version":"3.0","user":"api-test","dateGenerated":"2018-02-14T16:11:45Z","status":"OK","data":
    [{"parameter":"roughness_length:m","coordinates":
    [{"lat":45.5,"lon":7.3,"dates":[{"date":"2017-07-02T18:00:00Z","value":0.005}]},
    {"lat":45.5,"lon":7.8,"dates":[{"date":"2017-07-02T18:00:00Z","value":0.3}]},
    {"lat":46,"lon":7.3,"dates":[{"date":"2017-07-02T18:00:00Z","value":0.005}]},
    {"lat":46,"lon":7.8,"dates":[{"date":"2017-07-02T18:00:00Z","value":0.005}]}]}]}

Shadow

This parameter returns 1 or 0 depending on whether the coordinate is in shadow of the topography at the specified time or not.

is_in_shadow:idx

The reverse parameter returns 1 for areas not in shadow at the specified time.

is_not_in_shadow:idx

Examples

Open Water Body

This index tells you if a coordinate is located within a water body or on land. The index is either 1 for water bodies or 0 for land.

is_open_water_body:idx

Examples