The WFS service allows you to filter data by defining a geographical bounding box.

The datasets based on stations typically have two layers: one for the information about the stations themselves, and one for the actual measurements of the station.

The layer station will give you metadata about all existing stations : their location, the dates of the first observations, etc. With these informations, you can then define a bounding box around the station's location you are interested in.

Full example - query synoptic observations at Uccle-Ukkel between 20/07/2020 and 23/07/2020

1. Get station location

On the download page :

• Product: Synoptic observations
• Layer: synop_station
• Format: CSV
• Leave the other parameters as default and press "Download"

Or generate directly the WFS request :

https://opendata.meteo.be/service/ows?
    service=WFS&
    version=2.0.0&
    request=GetFeature&
    typenames=synop:synop_station&
    outputformat=csv

Open the CSV file, spot the line with Uccle-Ukkel and get its location: POINT(50.796862 4.357871)

2. Retrieve station data

On the download page :

• Product: Synoptic observations
• Layer: synop_data
• Format: CSV
• Bounding box:
  • West: 4.357871 (longitude of the station)
  • East: 4.357871 (longitude of the station)
  • South: 50.796862 (latitude of the station)
  • North: 50.796862 (latitude of the station)
• Time:
  • From: select 20/07/2020 00:00
  • To: select 23/07/2020 00:00
• Press "Download"

Or generate directly the WFS request :

https://opendata.meteo.be/service/ows?
    service=WFS&
    version=2.0.0&
    request=GetFeature&
    typenames=synop:synop_data&
    outputformat=csv&
    CQL_FILTER=((BBOX(the_geom,4.357871,50.796862,4.357871,50.796862,%20%27EPSG:4326%27))%20AND%20(timestamp%20%3E=%20%272020-07-20%2000:00:00.000%27%20AND%20timestamp%20%3C=%20%272020-07-23%2000:00:00.000%27))&
    sortby=timestamp
    

Our CSV files use only the comma as the field separator. Check if an other option (tabulation, semicolon, etc.) is not selected while importing the data into Excel.

Additionally, our numbers' format respects the most widely-used format in the computer science field: no thousand separator, and the dot as decimal separator. Be sure to match these in your import settings, otherwise the number 1.234 could be interpreted as a number over one thousand instead of a number between 1 and 2.

To ensure equitable access to resources for all users, the amount of data per file is limited. The current limit is 1 000 000 features per file.

Use the WFS options to limit the data to the geographical area (BBOX) and/or the time interval (timestamp) of interest.

If you need a large amount of data, please split it into several smaller queries.

To ensure equitable access to resources for all users, the amount of requests per user is limited. The current limits are :

• Maximum number of parallel requests : 10
• Maximum number of WMS requests : 20 000/10 minutes
• Maximum number of WCS requests : 50/10 minutes
• Maximum number of WFS requests : 50/10 minutes