An ordinary METAR report is issued hourly unless significant weather changes have occurred. For terminology, METAR refers to the type of report issued hourly and a SPECI refers to the type issued during special circumstances.
The raw records from the API calls contain abbreviations related to METER and TAF weather reports.
IEM network:
- https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/request/download.phtml
- https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/sites/networks.php?network=GH__ASOS
Sample output from https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/sites/networks.php?network=CA_BC_ASOS&format=csv&nohtml=on:
0 1
stid AAT ACV
station_name ALTURAS (WAS O00) ARCATA/EUREKA ARPT
lat 41.49139 40.97811
lon -120.56444 -124.10861
elev 1333.0 66.0
begints 1983-11-03 00:00 1949-12-01 00:00
endts NaN NaN
iem_network CA_ASOS CA_ASOS