About us

WhatAWeather is an independent project that brings Spain’s public weather and hydrological information together in one place: municipal forecasts, rain radar, reservoir levels, wildfire risk, pollen counts, snow level, wave conditions and official warnings. We are not a government body and we are not affiliated with one.

Where the project came from

The site started with a very specific goal: to see at a glance whether there was going to be a water problem. The information already existed — AEMET publishes warnings, the river basin authorities publish discharge and reservoir data, the European models publish forecasts — but it was scattered across different portals, in different formats, and designed for technical users. The idea was to pull all of it into one interface that makes sense without a degree in meteorology.

Over time the project grew beyond flood risk to cover everyday weather and outdoor planning: skiing, the beach, surfing, astrophotography, farming and driving. In May 2026 it was renamed WhatAWeather.

How we build what you see

We do not produce our own forecasts: we have no numerical model and no measuring stations. What we do is query public models and sources live, and then process that data to answer specific questions. That layer of interpretation is ours, and we explain it wherever it appears.

One example: for the 0-to-10 surf score we combine wave height and period from the marine model with the wind direction relative to the orientation of the coast, because an offshore wind grooms the wave and an onshore wind breaks it up. Each tool explains its own calculation on its own page, and every one of them states which model the data comes from and when it was last updated.

When a piece of data is not available we say so, instead of filling the gap with a guess. If the orientation of a stretch of coast cannot be determined reliably, for instance, the tool says so and stops classifying the wind rather than inventing an answer.

Data sources

We work exclusively with public sources and open APIs:

• Open-Meteo — multi-model weather forecasts (ECMWF, GFS, ICON), historical archive, the marine model for waves and currents, air quality and pollen from the European CAMS programme, and the digital elevation model.
• AEMET — official warnings and observations from the Spanish network.
• MITECO and the river basin authorities — reservoir levels and hydrological data.
• RainViewer — the precipitation radar mosaic behind the rain animation.
• OpenStreetMap — base cartography and mountain infrastructure such as pistes and lifts.

The specific attribution appears on each page, next to the data it belongs to.

What WhatAWeather is not

This matters as much as everything above. WhatAWeather does not replace official bodies. When there is an AEMET warning, an instruction from Civil Protection or a message from the 112 emergency service, the official source always takes precedence. Our information is indicative and designed for planning, not for safety-critical decisions.

We are not a real-time emergency service either: models update every few hours, and a storm can evolve far faster than that. And we do not publish sponsored content disguised as a forecast: if there were ever paid content, it would be labelled as such.

How the project is funded

The site is free and is supported by advertising. Ads are visually separated from the content and never influence what we publish: no advertiser has any say in the forecasts, the rankings or the assessments in our tools. You can see what data is collected and how it is handled in our privacy policy and cookie policy.

Mistakes and corrections

We publish model data and, like anyone who does, we get things wrong. If you spot an incorrect value, a calculation that does not add up or an out-of-date text, write to [email protected] and we will look into it. When we correct something significant, we change it on the affected page and update its date.

Contact

You can write to us about anything: corrections, suggestions, press enquiries, API use or legal matters. All the details are on the contact page, and the identifying details of the site operator are in the legal notice.