View Service (WMS) for Synoptic observations

A climate normal is an average over a 30-years period. The period 1981-2010 is the current reference period recommended by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Recent climate normals are available for any locations in Belgium and several parameters including air temperature, precipitations and solar radiation. Climate normals for the reference period 1981-2010 are available for air temperature, precipitation and derived parameters (e.g., annual number of summer days, annual number of precipitation days, etc.). For solar radiation, the reference period had to be adjusted to 1984-2013 because of data availability. These climate normals are available as maps and as table for each Belgian municipality.

RADCLIM is a historical dataset based on weather radar observations that provides gridded accumulated precipitation composites over Belgium and surrounding regions. The data are distributed in ODIM_H5 version 2.2 format. The reported quantity is accumulated precipitation (ACRR) for 5-minute and 1-hour accumulation periods. UTC is used as the time reference, and the timestamp in the filename corresponds to the end of the accumulation period. The dataset is produced on a 700 × 700 grid with 1 km spatial resolution in the Belgian Lambert 2008 projection (Lambert Conformal Conic).

The climatological network contains about 200 stations spread over the whole country. It consists of voluntary observers recruited by the RMI, professional observers of Skeyes (civil aviation) or the Air Force (military aviation) and civil servants of the state, communities or private companies. The observers measure the amount of rain fallen in the last 24 hours in the pluviometer of the RMI every morning at 8 o‘clock. In more than half of the stations the extreme air temperatures are also recorded by reading the maximum and minimum temperature in a standardized weather shelter. The observers send their observations either on a  daily or on a monthly basis to RMI. This product is not publicly available yet.

The ceilometer CL51 employs a pulsed diode laser LIDAR technology, where short, powerful laser pulses are sent out in a vertical or near-vertical direction. The reflection of light (backscatter) caused by clouds, precipitation or other obscuration is analysed and used to determine the cloud base height, the cloud layer height and the amount of clouds (in octas) in different layers.

Bird density profiles are derived from weather radar volume data in real time, by the vol2bird algorithm as described in Dokter et al. (2011, 2019). The vol2bird algorithm exploits the radar reflectivity characteristics of different scatterers in the atmosphere, in order to distinguish biological from non-biological radar echoes. Once biological scatterers are isolated in the volume files, the reflectivity of these scatterers is converted in an estimate of the bird density per vertical layer of 200m, using a mean cross section of 11 cm2. The vbird profiles are provided for the following radars, with the radar owner in parentheses: Jabbeke (RMI), Wideumont (RMI), Helchteren (VMM), Zaventem (Skeyes), Herwijnen (KNMI), Den Helder (KNMI), Neuheilenbach (DWD), Essen (DWD), Abbeville (Météo-France) and Avesnois (Météo-France). References: - Dokter A.M., Liechti F., Stark H., Delobbe L., Tabary P., Holleman I., Bird migration flight altitudes studied by a network of operational weather radars, J. R. Soc. Interface, 8, 30–43, 2011, DOI 10.1098/rsif.2010.0116 - Dokter A.M., Desmet P., Spaaks J.H., van Hoey S., Veen L., Verlinden L., Nilsson C., Haase G., Leijnse H., Farnsworth A., Bouten W., Shamoun-Baranes J., bioRad: biological analysis and visualization of weather radar data, Ecography, 42, 852-860, 2019, DOI 10.1111/ecog.04028

View Service (WMS) for Automatic weather station (AWS) observations

View Service (WMS) for Alaro over Belgium. All the parameters of the last run of Alaro can be visualized, most of them associated with a custom style.

The composite is produced every 5 minutes using the reflectivity data from the Wideumont and Jabbeke weather radars. This product is not publicly available yet.

Weather model INCA. Available parameters : 2m Temperature, 2m Dewpoint, 2m Relative Humidity, Snowfall level, Freezing level, 3D Temperature, 3D Humidity, 3D Wind, 10m Wind, 10m Gusts, Ground temperature, Wind chill, Precipitation, Precipitation type, Lightning, Collection of convective analysis fields:CAPE, CIN, LCL, Level of free convection,Lifted Index, Showalter Index, Deep ConvectionIndex, Trigger temperature, Trigger temperaturedeficit, Equivalent Pot. temperature, Moistureconvergence, Flow divergence, Precipitable water, Cloudiness, Visibility. This product is not publicly available yet