Thunderstorm Tracking

API endpoint for getting thunderstorm historical and current tracks and nowcast in GeoJSON format. Historic and current thunderstorm cells are identified using clusters of lightning strikes of the past hour. The nowcast thunderstorm tracking is based on wind data and predicts 3h in the future.

Default end point to fetch thunderstorm tracks:

http://api.meteomatics.com/get_thunderstorm_tracks?<fields>

With following options

Field	Description	Example
`datetime`	The date and time of interest, further information here.	`datetime=2025-06-01T11:30:00Z`
`bbox`	A bounding box specified by maximal and minimal latitude and longitude formatted according to `BBOX=<min_lon,min_lat,max_lon,max_lat>`. The response will only contain thunderstorm tracks within this area. For all thunderstorms use bbox world ('-180,-90,180,90').	`bbox=6.3,40.8,9.3,48.2`

Output is GeoJSON of the following form:

{
  "features": [
    {
      "geometry": {
        "coordinates": "..., decimals, decimal degrees [longitude, latitude]",
        "type": "..., string, geometry, {Point, Polygon, LineString}"
      },
      "properties": {
        "id": "..., integer, unique ID of the thunderstorm track in the query, {0, ...} per query",
        "index": "..., integer, unique ID of datapoint within the thunderstorm track, {0, ...} per thunderstorm track",
        "severity": "..., string, severity, {decaying, low, medium, high}",
        "timestamp": "..., datetime, time of detected storm",
        "type": "..., string, model type, {current, nowcast, history}"
      },
      "type": "Feature"
    }
  ],
  "type": "FeatureCollection"
}

Example GeoJSON output:

Thunderstorm tracking on June 1^st, 2025:

{
  "features": [
    {
      "geometry": {
        "coordinates": [8.98, 48.03],
        "type": "Point"
      },
      "properties": {
        "id": "0",
        "index": 0,
        "severity": "low",
        "timestamp": "2025-06-01T11:30:00Z",
        "type": "history"
      },
      "type": "Feature"
    },
    {
      "geometry": {
        "coordinates": [[[8.95, 47.99], [9.01, 47.99], [9.01, 48.07], [8.95, 48.07], [8.95, 47.99]]],
        "type": "Polygon"
      },
      "properties": {
        "id": "0",
        "severity": "low",
        "type": "current"
      },
      "type": "Feature"
    },
    {
      "geometry": {
        "coordinates": [[[8.98, 48.03], [9.17, 48.04], [10.463, 48.238], [10.463, 48.361], [10.462, 48.363], [10.37, 48.363], [10.216, 48.347], [10.06, 48.325], [9.741, 48.274], [9.582, 48.248], [9.425, 48.216], [9.268, 48.174], [9.11, 48.12], [8.98, 48.03]]],
        "type": "Polygon"
      },
      "properties": {
        "id": "0",
        "severity": "low",
        "type": "nowcast"
      },
      "type": "Feature"
    }
  ],
  "type": "FeatureCollection"
}

Query including options:
https://api.meteomatics.com/get_thunderstorm_tracks?datetime=2025-06-01T11:30:00Z&bbox=8.9,48.0,9,48.1