How Weather Fusion gets data

The weather station model identifies the physical hardware and sensors. Most stations first send observations to a separate connection service such as AmbientWeather.net, Ecowitt Cloud, Tempest, WeatherLink, Weather Underground, or Windy. Weather Fusion authenticates with that service, retrieves the stations available to the account or configuration, and keeps a stable service-and-station identity for each local database.

WiFiLogger provides a local path for compatible Davis consoles: Weather Fusion contacts the logger directly over the local network. Airport (METAR) provides aviation observations. Saving an airport gives it the same local observation and history views as other saved stations. Netatmo Network observations remain a map discovery source; eligible Windy and Weather Underground markers can be saved after their credentials are configured.

Current observations

The selected connection has its own automatic polling interval. A successful response is normalized into Weather Fusion measurements, giving cards, station details, maps, and widgets a consistent measurement catalog across services. The observation timestamp remains the source of truth for freshness.

Historical observations

Provider-specific policies determine the ranges, cadence, rate limits, and account checks used to retrieve history. Weather Fusion stores accepted observations in the selected station’s local .wfdb package. Historical and Observations then render from local storage as users move between screens.

Airport reports and archives

An airport’s current report and older archive can come from different sources. The Aviation Weather Center (AWC) supplies current METAR and SPECI reports and approximately 30 days of recent history. Earlier history uses a matching NOAA GHCN-hourly archive or, when one is unavailable, a supported Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM) archive. The choice depends on verified station identity and archive availability.

Archive Start in station details describes the source’s earliest listed date. Coverage varies by period. Locally stored coverage depends on which records have been downloaded, and gaps can remain within that range. See Download older observations for earlier records and Airport (METAR) for setup.

Derived context

Weather Fusion combines provider readings with local summaries and, when coordinates are valid, sun, moon, and limited Apple Weather context. Apple Weather context can still appear when the station provider is temporarily unavailable. Its update time is independent of the station observation time. The two-hour visual delay cue is also separate from the freshness rules used to decide when to request or reuse data. Derived values remain identified separately from provider-supplied physical-sensor readings; required inputs and attribution remain part of availability decisions.