Self-Hosted Weather Radar

LibreWXR is a free, open-source weather radar API you can host yourself. It's a drop-in replacement for Rain Viewer with real radar composites and worldwide GFS model coverage.

Features

Rain Viewer Compatible

Drop-in v2 API replacement. Works with any app or library that supports Rain Viewer tiles.

Multi-Region Radar

Real radar composites for the US (CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam), Nordic countries, and Germany.

Global Fallback

GFS simulated reflectivity fills in worldwide coverage where no real radar composite exists.

Snow Detection

Per-pixel snow and rain classification using GFS global surface temperature data.

9 Color Schemes

All Rain Viewer color schemes including NEXRAD III, Universal Blue, TITAN, Dark Sky, and more.

No GDAL Required

Pure Python with numpy. No system geo libraries needed. Simple Docker deployment.

Quick Start

Deploy your own instance with Docker in under a minute:

git clone https://github.com/JoshuaKimsey/LibreWXR.git
cd LibreWXR
cp .env.example .env
docker compose up -d

The server starts in about 6 seconds and begins serving tiles immediately. Historical frames backfill in the background.

Using the API

LibreWXR exposes a Rain Viewer v2 compatible API. Point any Rain Viewer client at your instance:

# Metadata endpoint (timestamps + tile paths)
GET https://api.librewxr.net/public/weather-maps.json

# Radar tile
GET https://api.librewxr.net/v2/radar/{timestamp}/{size}/{z}/{x}/{y}/{color}/{smooth}_{snow}.png

# Health check
GET https://api.librewxr.net/health

For Leaflet, the tile URL pattern is:

https://api.librewxr.net/v2/radar/{timestamp}/256/{z}/{x}/{y}/7/1_1.png

See the GitHub repository for full documentation, configuration options, and example code.

Data Sources

Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM) — NEXRAD radar composites (US regions)
MET Norway THREDDS — Nordic radar reflectivity composite
DWD Open Data — German radar reflectivity composite
UCAR THREDDS — GFS temperature and simulated reflectivity

All data sources are freely available from government-funded institutions.

Open Source

LibreWXR is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). Contributions are welcome on GitHub.