Smarter Weather

A dataset's variables or properties (standard names, units, categories, bands, aggregates), horizon, step, cadence, freshness, cost class, verified examples, an example_query to read values; a map layer's axes (source, region, facts), render call. Free. Call it when a grid or snapshot hit's call lacks the variable you need (with no variable, it may read only the headline one), or to check meaning, units, horizon or cost; not needed when the hit's call already names what you need: run that. Example: {"dataset_id": ""}.

Where a place is and what time it is there. query (a name, ZIP, venue or address) or lat+lon to ranked candidates with lat/lon, timezone and type place|zip|address|poi|county|station; time: utc and, per distinct zone among the candidates, its local time and a 14-day calendar (join on timezone). Sun and moon are get_data reads. Example: {"lat": 39.74, "lon": -104.99} -> Denver, America/Denver.

Values, totals, comparisons, best times for a purpose (criteria), people/POI counts, station observations, upper-air profiles, climate records, normals, degree days, teleconnection indices and forecaster text from any dataset (models, radar, alerts, outlooks, tropical cyclones, aircraft recon, reference layers) at places, over a bbox or area, along a path, or as items. select takes product:variable or product:property, a standard name or a concept (population), from describe_data or search_data; one space word, at most one time word (hours, start+end, at; run pins a cycle); stats reduces per step or area-wide. Example: {"select": ["temperature_2m"], "locations": ["Savannah, GA", "Macon, GA"], "hours": 36}.

Data freshness of the weather platform (no inputs needed; refreshed about every 5 minutes): overall state, per-source states (ok / degraded / outage / no_signal), open incidents with their cause (provider outage vs internal processing delay) and active provider advisories. Use it when asked whether data is current, or when other tools return stale-looking data. If a source is degraded or in outage, say the data may be stale rather than presenting it as live. Example: {}.

Render a weather map or chart image for visual analysis: kind: map draws select layers (radar, satellite, outlooks, alerts and storm features overlaid) at location or bbox, and kind: sounding draws the nearest radiosonde as a skew-T and hodograph chart. With no select the map draws precipitation_hybrid (observed radar precipitation in the place's domain); at picks the closest frame, filter narrows feature overlays, area draws an outline, and search_data finds products. Example: {"kind": "map", "location": "Tulsa, OK", "select": ["nexrad_l3:TLX:N0S", "weather_alert"], "filter": ["event == Tornado Warning"], "zoom": 8}.

Search the data catalog: which dataset's values answer a question about weather and the people and places it affects, or what data exists at a point. With query it ranks datasets and map layers and returns hits with the next call (a named place fills its area; add a place if note asks) and any verified example; without it, it lists datasets at the place with freshness, or all. A place or domain keeps datasets covering it; kind and family filter a listing, rank a query; describe_data lists other variables for get_data. Example: {"query": "snow depth", "location": "Erie, PA"}.