open datasets

Besides nature, fieldwork pnw is a tribute to what open datasets can reveal about our world, weather, and environment. Explore these for your own location. We hope you find them interesting.

weather & atmosphere

Open-Meteo Historical Forecast & Archive
Open-Meteo
Weather, wind, clouds, dew point, precip, and short-range forecasts at capture for About this Photo.
license: CC BY 4.0
Open-Meteo Air Quality (CAMS)
Open-Meteo / Copernicus Atmosphere
Air quality (US AQI, PM2.5) and UV index at the photo location.
license: CC BY 4.0
Open-Meteo Marine
Open-Meteo
Near-coast wave and marine conditions when a tide station is nearby.
license: CC BY 4.0
ASOS / METAR observations
Iowa Environmental Mesonet
Nearest ASOS/METAR station observations, as a check on interpolated weather.
license: Public domain (US gov't ASOS/METAR via IEM)

climate normals

ERA5 reanalysis (1991–2020)
ECMWF / Copernicus via Open-Meteo
30-year (1991–2020) reanalysis normals that show how unusual the capture moment was.
license: CC BY 4.0 (via Open-Meteo)
Streamflow day-of-year normals
USGS Water Data
Day-of-year streamflow percentiles for nearby gages.
license: Public domain (US gov't)
NASA POWER climatology
NASA Langley Research Center
Long-term monthly solar radiation means for climate comparison.
license: Public domain (US gov't)

satellite imagery

GOES-West ABI TrueColor (MCMIP)
NOAA / NESDIS
TrueColor satellite stills centered on the photo GPS (±2.5° crop).
license: Public domain (US gov't)

radar

NEXRAD radar composites
NOAA via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
Radar mosaics and nearest-site scans for About this Photo stills and frame sequences.
license: Public domain (US gov't)

tides & water

CO-OPS tide predictions
NOAA Tides & Currents
Tide predictions from the nearest CO-OPS station when close enough and low enough.
license: Public domain (US gov't)
NWIS instantaneous values
USGS Water Data
Nearest gage discharge, stage, and water-quality readings when the site reports them.
license: Public domain (US gov't)
Continuous flow & water quality
Washington Department of Ecology
Washington continuous water-quality stations (DO, pH, conductivity, turbidity).
license: Open government data (WA Ecology)

solar radiation

NASA POWER hourly solar
NASA Langley Research Center
Hourly GHI, DNI, and DHI solar radiation at capture time.
license: Public domain (US gov't)

astronomy

Sun, moon & twilight ephemeris
Local computation (PyEphem)
Sun altitude, moon phase, and twilight for exact coordinates and shutter time.
license: LGPL-3.0
ISS two-line elements
CelesTrak
ISS orbital elements for pass timing near a capture.
license: Free with usage limits (CelesTrak)

maps & basemaps

The National Map (topo, imagery, hydro)
USGS
Topo, imagery (About this Photo stills), hydro, contours, and roads on maps.
license: Public domain (US gov't)
MapTiler streets (admin maps)
MapTiler / OpenStreetMap contributors
Optional commercial street basemap when a MapTiler key is configured.
license: MapTiler Cloud ToS + ODbL (OSM)
OpenTopoMap
OpenTopoMap
Terrain basemap option on interactive maps.
license: CC BY-SA

places & parks

Park & protected-area boundaries
OSM, Wikidata, USGS & state sources
Park and protected-area boundaries for place tagging and map rings.
license: ODbL / CC0 (varies by source)
NPS park descriptions
National Park Service
Preferred one-line and editorial park descriptions for NPS units.
license: Public domain (US gov't)
Wikipedia place summaries
Wikimedia
Fallback place summaries for non-NPS parks and places without an NPS description.
license: CC BY-SA