Documentation for /cgi-bin/request/rwis.py

This service emits RWIS data.

Changelog

• 2026-03-17: When requesting text/csv output, you can request up to 500 station-years worth of data. If you are requesting Excel or HTML output, you are limited to 1 station-years to prevent this service from exhausting resources.
• 2025-02-26: Added variable support for relh and feel, but these variables are not fully available yet over the archive.
• 2024-09-19: Fix bug with no variables returned when vars is not set
• 2024-08-01: Initital documentation release and pydantic validation

Example Requests

Provide all Iowa RWIS data for 1 July 2024 in Excel format:

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/rwis.py?network=IA_RWIS&stations=_ALL&tz=America%2FChicago&what=excel&src=atmos&sts=2024-07-01T00:00&ets=2024-07-02T00:00

Same request, but add a latitude and longitude column

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/rwis.py?network=IA_RWIS&stations=_ALL&tz=America%2FChicago&what=excel&src=atmos&sts=2024-07-01T00:00&ets=2024-07-02T00:00&gis=true

Provide all traffic data on 1 July 2024 for Iowa RWIS station RAVI4 in CSV format:

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/rwis.py?network=IA_RWIS&stations=RAVI4&tz=America%2FChicago&what=download&src=traffic&sts=2024-07-01T00:00&ets=2024-07-02T00:00

Provide all soil data on 1 July 2024 for Iowa RWIS stations RAKI4 in a HTML table:

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/rwis.py?network=IA_RWIS&stations=RAKI4&tz=America%2FChicago&what=html&src=soil&sts=2024-07-01T00:00&ets=2024-07-02T00:00

Provide air temp and relative humidity data on 1 July 2024 for Iowa RWIS stations RAKI4 in a text file:

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/rwis.py?network=IA_RWIS&stations=RAKI4&tz=America%2FChicago&what=txt&src=atmos&sts=2024-07-01T00:00:00&ets=2024-07-02T00:00:00&vars=tmpf,relh

Provide all atmospheric data for 31 July 2024 in UTC timezone for Minnesota RWIS stations:

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/rwis.py?network=MN_RWIS&stations=_ALL&tz=UTC&what=download&src=atmos&sts=2024-07-31T00:00&ets=2024-08-01T00:00

CGI Arguments

The following table lists the CGI arguments that are accepted by this service. A HTTP GET request is required. Fields of type Multi-Params or CSV value can accept either a comma separated list or multiple parameter and value combinations. For example, ?foo=1&foo=2 is equivalent to ?foo=1,2.

Field	Type	Description
delim	string	Delimiter to use in output file
gis	boolean	Include latitude and longitude columns in output
vars	Multi-Params or CSV value	List of variables to include in output, if none are set, then all variables are returned for the given src
what	string	Controls the response format. dl and txt provide data in a delimited text file, html provides a HTML table, excel provides the data in a Microsoft Excel format.
tz	string or null	A time zone string specified by IANA. Common examples include 'America/Chicago', 'UTC', and 'Etc/UTC'. The code implementation passes this provided string to the python ZoneInfo library.
src	string	Data source to use
stations	Multi-Params or CSV value (required)	Either provide a single value, multiple parameters each with a single value, or a comma-separated list of values. The context here is a list of station identifiers. All lowercase letters are converted to uppercase.
network	string	IEM network identifier. Typically a combination of a US state abbreviation and a network classification, ie IA_ASOS.
sts	string or null	Start timestamp
ets	string or null	End timestamp
year1	integer or null	Year field.
month1	integer or null	Month of the year
day1	integer or null	Day of the month
hour1	integer or null	Hour of the day, 24 hour clock
minute1	integer or null	Minute of the hour
year2	integer or null	Year field.
month2	integer or null	Month of the year
day2	integer or null	Day of the month
hour2	integer or null	Hour of the day, 24 hour clock
minute2	integer or null	Minute of the hour