# Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) vs NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)

> NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) has a score of 49.9 (D) against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E). Both do weather current. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 35 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-nws-api
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-nws-api.md (~1,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-nws-api.min.md (~430 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/met-office-datahub-vs-nws-api.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-04

NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) has a score of 49.9 (D) against Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)'s 45.5 (E). Both do weather current. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 35 points.

- Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific): grade E, 45.5/100, rank #399 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/met-office-datahub.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/met-office-datahub.json
- NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov): grade D, 49.9/100, rank #364 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nws-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nws-api.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) for reliability (+23), security & auth (+13), maintenance & community (+7).

Pick NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) for schema & documentation (+35), agent ergonomics (+13), payments & pricing (+30).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 48 | 25 | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 32 | 67 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 53 | 66 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 53 | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 15 | 8 | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 67 | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **45.5 · E** | **49.9 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific) | NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Met Office | National Weather Service |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://data.hub.api.metoffice.gov.uk/sitespecific/v0/point` | `https://api.weather.gov` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | BSD-3-Clause (utilities) | Public domain (data) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | none | 2026-03-19 |
| Popularity | none | 310 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific).** Statutory UK weather service, with a FAQ licence to copy, publish and adapt the data. No OpenAPI, llms.txt, SDK or MCP server.

**NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov).** Free, no key and no account, with public domain data. US and territories only.

## Before you call either

### Met Office Weather DataHub (Site Specific)

1. Register an application and subscribe it to the Global Spot plan first. The key is tied to that order and shown once
2. Send the key in the apikey header with Accept: application/json, and latitude and longitude as query parameters
3. Add excludeParameterMetadata=true to drop the parameter descriptions from every response
4. Pick the timestep by need. hourly covers 48 hours, three-hourly 168, daily 7 days, and each call counts against the daily limit
5. Stop on a 429. The limit is daily and resets at 00:00 UTC

### NOAA National Weather Service API (api.weather.gov)

1. Set User-Agent to your app name and a contact email or the request is refused with 403
2. Cache the /points response per coordinate. The office and grid rarely change
3. Round coordinates to four decimal places. More precision returns an error
4. Don't add cache-busting query parameters. Unknown parameters return 400
5. Back off about five seconds after a throttled request and reuse the last good response

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