Leaf’s Weather API provides historical and forecasted weather data tied to field boundaries or arbitrary lat/lon coordinates. Data is available in daily or hourly granularity, sourced from multiple weather models worldwide.
Forecast data
The forecast service covers 5 days in the past through 10 days into the future. If you don’t specify dates, Leaf returns the next 7 days by default.
Forecast models
| Model | Provider | Country | Resolution | Forecast Length | Update Frequency |
|---|
| GFS | NOAA | United States | 3–25 km | 16 days | Every hour |
| ICON | Deutscher Wetterdienst | Germany | 2–11 km | 7.5 days | Every 3 hours |
| IFS | ECMWF | European Union | 44 km | 7 days | Every 6 hours |
| JMA | JMA | Japan | 5–55 km | 11 days | Every 3 hours |
| GEM | Canadian Weather Service | Canada | 2.5 km | 10 days | Every 6 hours |
| Arpege & Arome | Météo-France | France | 1–40 km | 4 days | Every 6 hours |
gfs. Leaf selects the best model for any given location when using the default, so you generally don’t need to specify one unless you want data from a particular source.
Forecast variables
Variables available across most models (some models omit soil temperature or soil moisture):
Daily: temperature (mean/min/max), soil temperature (mean/min/max), sunrise, sunset, max wind speed, max wind gusts, wind direction, evapotranspiration, rain sum, snowfall sum, precipitation sum.
Hourly (additional): dew point, longwave radiation, shortwave radiation, cloud cover, relative humidity, soil moisture at multiple depths.
Sunrise and sunset are daily-only. Dew point, radiation, cloud cover, and relative humidity are hourly-only. All other variables appear in both daily and hourly responses.
Historical data
Historical weather data is sourced from ERA5 reanalysis products and goes back to 1940 (ERA5) or 1950 (ERA5-Land). There is a 5-day delay on historical data availability. For weather data within the last 5 days, use the forecast endpoints instead.
Historical models
| Model | Coverage | Resolution | Temporal Resolution | Data Availability |
|---|
| ERA5 | Global | ~25 km | Hourly | 1940–present |
| ERA5-Land | Global | ~11 km | Hourly | 1950–present |
era5. ERA5-Land offers higher spatial resolution but starts a decade later.
Historical variables
The same variable set as forecast data, with soil moisture measured at different depth intervals: 0–7 cm, 7–28 cm, 28–100 cm, and 100–255 cm (vs. 0–1 cm, 1–3 cm, 3–9 cm, 9–27 cm, 27–81 cm for forecast models).
Query options
You can fetch weather data in two ways:
By field — Requires a Leaf user ID and field ID. Leaf uses the centroid of the field boundary.
GET /services/weather/api/users/{leafUserId}/weather/forecast/field/{fieldId}/daily
GET /services/weather/api/users/{leafUserId}/weather/historical/field/{fieldId}/hourly
GET /services/weather/api/weather/forecast/daily/{lat},{lon}
GET /services/weather/api/weather/historical/hourly/{lat},{lon}
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
startTime | Start date (YYYY-MM-DD). |
endTime | End date (YYYY-MM-DD). |
model | Weather model to use. Defaults to gfs (forecast) or era5 (historical). |
units | metric (default) or imperial. |
Request limits
- Daily endpoints: maximum span of 366 days per request.
- Hourly endpoints: maximum span of 30 days per request.
Units
All numeric values respect the units parameter:
| Measurement | Metric | Imperial |
|---|
| Temperature | °C | °F |
| Precipitation / Rain / ET | mm | inch |
| Snowfall | cm | inch |
| Wind speed / gusts | km/h | mph |
| Radiation | W/m² | W/m² |
| Soil moisture | m³/m³ | m³/m³ |
| Cloud cover / Humidity | % | % |
| Wind direction | ° | ° |
geometry is a Point (field centroid or the lat/lon you specified). The properties object contains each weather variable as a named key with values (time series array) and unit.
{
"type": "Feature",
"properties": {
"maxTemperature": {
"values": [
{ "time": "2024-07-21T00:00:00", "value": 28.8 },
{ "time": "2024-07-22T00:00:00", "value": 28.1 }
],
"unit": "ºC"
}
},
"geometry": {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [-89.643, 39.802]
}
}
null.
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