RODEO Project – bringing meteorological data open for all users

The RODEO project responds to the requirements of the EU Directive (2019/1024) on Open Data and its Implementing Regulation in order to boost the re-use and combination of open public data across the EU. The Implementing Regulation defines High Value Datasets (HVD) for six thematic categories of public data of which weather observation data, climate data, warnings, weather radar data and Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) data are defined as meteorological High Value Datasets. These HVDs shall be shared free of charge, under the conditions of the Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence or a less restrictive open licence, and will be openly accessible via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), machine-readable and bulk downloadable.

The three-year RODEO project is a joint effort by 11 European meteorological institutions, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the network of 31 European National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, EUMETNET. The project strengthens the capacity of the European meteorological data providers by

• Developing a user interface and a data catalogue for making data discoverable;
• Developing APIs, using open licences, for accessing weather observation data, climate data, weather radar data, warnings, and AI datasets;
• Engaging with the data owners and user communities; and
• Supporting the deployment of national data portals and APIs.
• Implementing a comprehensive user engagement strategy involving
  • A Project External Advisory Board, composed of public and private sector partners
  • Frequent communications updates through several channels

The project is now in its second year. It has moved on from its design phase into developing and testing some of the APIs that are going to enable a large increase in the open availability of near real time European meteorological data. This will bring large benefits across society as a whole from the public through to decision makers. In particular, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will benefit from the greater data availability by creating new digital products and services and eventually attract new investors.