aid: xweather-vocabulary name: Xweather Vocabulary description: >- Domain vocabulary for the Xweather Weather API by Vaisala, covering meteorological resources, observation types, severe-weather concepts, lightning data, air quality, maritime weather, and the operational and capability dimensions of the platform. created: '2026-05-03' modified: '2026-05-03' tags: - Air Quality - Data - Forecasts - Lightning - Maritime - Observations - Severe Weather - Weather operational: resources: - name: Conditions description: Current and historical surface weather conditions for a location. - name: Forecasts description: Hourly and daily weather forecast records. - name: Alerts description: Active and historical severe-weather alerts and watches/warnings. - name: Lightning description: Cloud-to-ground and in-cloud lightning strike events and threat nowcasts. - name: AirQuality description: Air-quality index values, primary pollutants, and category descriptors. - name: Observations description: Reports from individual surface weather stations. - name: Fires description: Active wildfire incident records and perimeters. - name: TropicalCyclones description: Tropical cyclone tracks, intensity, and forecast cones. - name: Maritime description: Marine and ocean weather records (waves, swell, sea state, sea-surface temperature). actions: - name: getConditions description: Retrieve current weather conditions for a location. - name: getForecasts description: Retrieve hourly or daily forecasts for a location. - name: getAlerts description: Retrieve active severe weather alerts for a location. - name: getLightning description: Retrieve recent lightning strike events. - name: getLightningThreats description: Retrieve lightning threat nowcast (probability of lightning in the next interval). - name: getAirQuality description: Retrieve current air quality index and pollutant data for a location. - name: getObservations description: Retrieve recent observations from surface weather stations. - name: getWildfires description: Retrieve active wildfire incidents. - name: listTropicalCyclones description: List currently active tropical cyclones globally. - name: getMaritimeConditions description: Retrieve marine weather conditions (waves, swell, SST) for a location. capability: workflows: - name: Operational Weather Monitoring description: >- Continuously poll conditions, forecasts, and alerts for a fixed set of operational sites and dispatch notifications when severe weather thresholds are crossed. persona: Operations Manager - name: Lightning Safety Automation description: >- Use lightning strikes and threat nowcasts to drive automated stop-work and all-clear signals for outdoor operations such as construction, sports venues, and aviation ground crews. persona: Safety Officer - name: Air Quality Reporting description: >- Aggregate AQI and pollutant readings across a portfolio of facilities to drive environmental, health, and compliance reporting. persona: Environmental Analyst - name: Maritime Routing description: >- Combine maritime conditions, tropical cyclone tracks, and forecasts to optimize shipping routes and ETA calculations. persona: Marine Operations Planner - name: Wildfire Response description: >- Combine wildfire incident data with conditions and forecasts to support emergency response and asset protection. persona: Emergency Response Coordinator personas: - name: Operations Manager description: >- Plans and oversees operations exposed to weather risk; consumes conditions, forecasts, and alerts to make go/no-go decisions. - name: Safety Officer description: >- Responsible for outdoor worker and public safety; consumes lightning, alerts, and severe-weather feeds. - name: Environmental Analyst description: >- Tracks air quality and emissions for compliance and reporting; consumes air quality and observation feeds. - name: Marine Operations Planner description: >- Plans ship routing and port operations; consumes maritime conditions and tropical cyclone tracks. - name: Emergency Response Coordinator description: >- Coordinates response to natural hazards; consumes wildfire, alerts, and conditions. terms: - term: Xweather definition: >- Vaisala's weather data platform delivering real-time and historical conditions, forecasts, severe weather alerts, lightning, air quality, maritime, wildfire, and tropical cyclone data through REST APIs. category: Platform aliases: - AerisWeather - Vaisala Xweather - term: Vaisala definition: >- Finnish industrial-measurement company that operates the Xweather platform and a global lightning detection network among other meteorological infrastructure. category: Provider - term: Client ID definition: >- Public API credential identifying a developer account; sent as the client_id query parameter together with client_secret on every Xweather API request. category: Authentication - term: Client Secret definition: >- Private API credential paired with client_id to authenticate Xweather API requests. Sent as the client_secret query parameter or via HTTP headers. category: Authentication - term: Location Selector definition: >- The {location} path parameter accepted by every Xweather endpoint; supports ZIP codes, city/state pairs, country codes, lat/long pairs, place names, station IDs, and special tokens such as :auto and closest queries. category: Concept - term: Lightning Strike definition: >- A discrete cloud-to-ground or in-cloud electrical discharge detected by Vaisala's lightning detection network. Each strike carries timestamp, location, peak current, and polarity. category: Resource - term: Lightning Threat Nowcast definition: >- A short-term probabilistic forecast of lightning activity for a location, used to drive stop-work and all-clear decisions for outdoor operations. category: Resource - term: AQI definition: >- Air Quality Index. A normalized index value (typically 0-500) categorizing air quality from Good through Hazardous; reported with primary pollutant. category: Concept aliases: - Air Quality Index - term: Tropical Cyclone definition: >- A rotating low-pressure storm system originating over tropical or subtropical waters; classified by sustained wind speed (Tropical Depression, Tropical Storm, Hurricane/Typhoon Category 1-5). category: Resource - term: Maritime Conditions definition: >- Ocean and marine weather data including significant wave height, swell period, sea-surface temperature, and wind/wave fields. category: Resource - term: Severe Weather Alert definition: >- A government-issued advisory, watch, or warning for hazardous weather (severe thunderstorm, tornado, flood, winter storm, etc.). Carries severity, urgency, and certainty fields aligned with the Common Alerting Protocol. category: Resource - term: Surface Observation definition: >- A weather report from a fixed station (typically METAR-derived) including temperature, humidity, wind, pressure, and present weather codes. category: Resource - term: Forecast Period definition: >- A single time slice within a forecast response, identified by start/end timestamps and characterized by expected temperature, precipitation, wind, and weather codes. category: Concept - term: METAR definition: >- Meteorological Aerodrome Report. The international standard for surface weather observations, used as the primary input for Xweather observations endpoints. category: Standard