Can I get radar data from this. I saw that I can get a list of radar stations and meta data from them but I would like the radar data (really imaged would probably be better). Thank you for the post.

Yep. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/radar/next-generation-wea...

Not an API, but I really like supercell wx for a local radar terminal. Cross platform and works great on Linux. It does require an API key to do the map rendering, but the actual weather data is pulled from government sources (free)

https://github.com/dpaulat/supercell-wx

FWIW, there are people who would very much like to see that no longer be the case in the US.

Yep, everyone I know in Australia just uses the BOM (the government bureau of meteorology) app. (If they aren't just using whatever build in weather app they have, that is.)

I've never understood what benefit any other app could provide given they are just ingesting the BOM data.

and for a streamlined way to grab weather forecast data directly from multiple governments national weather service APIs, there’s the library UniWeather.js:

https://github.com/ghobs91/UniWeather.js

Since moving to the Netherlands I have found it surprising how bad short term forecasting is here. In the US I would get a notification 15 minutes before it rained and it would almost always be accurate within 5 minutes, and a notification when it was going to stop. I don’t really understand why it is so much worse here in this regard.

I use weather underground in the Eastern US but I'd love to know if there's a better app.

I also use RadarScope but that's more to see the intensity of nearby rain cells and try to guess for myself their movement and evolution

If you want to go overboard, there's NOAA's Global Forecast System.

https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/emc/pages/numerical_forecast_s...

Updated four times per day and has predictions out to about two weeks. It's used as the core input of most weather forecasts.

It depends where you are in the world. The general solution involve an app that provides two types of forecast products: (1) a short-range, high-resolution numerical weather forecast over your country / domain of interest, refreshed rapidly (about an hour or so) and providing forecasts out to about 24 hours; and (2) a radar-based nowcast which extrapolates very short-term (~2 hours out) forecasts solely for rain.

The limitations straightforward. For (1), very few countries have access to such a forecast system outside of the US and continental Europe, and virtually no private company runs comparable systems (at least in the B2C space). For (2), very few countries have high-quality doppler radar networks and make the output available for these applications.

There really isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, despite what the umpteen-gazillion weather apps on the Play Store or Apple Store will try to sell you.

When I visited Amsterdam, I was suggested Drops and it worked down to the minutes. I was like, wow! This is brilliant.

https://apps.apple.com/in/app/drops-with-rain-radar/id981543...

I have found 'Buienalarm' to be more accurate in the Netherlands, not scientifically, just anecdotally

Apps like Carrot get their 'hyperlocal' radar maps by pulling data from various sources, often a combination of regional radar stations like NEXRAD and TDWR, depending on the location. In the U.S., the general radar view you see is often based on a mosaic of data from all NEXRAD stations across the country. While this is good for a broad look at weather patterns, it tends to be less accurate at a local level.

For 'hyperlocal' views, apps will grab radar data from specific, nearby stations, which are more accurate and provide more frequent updates (e.g., every 5-10 minutes for NEXRAD). However, the resolution can vary depending on the radar type. TDWR, which is typically used for airports, might not provide the same level of resolution as NEXRAD.

Radar data is usually shared in formats like NetCDF or Gridded Binary, and weather apps let users choose between viewing the high-level mosaic or zooming in on a specific radar station's data. This is why different radar types are offered in apps, each with its own resolution and refresh rate.