Story ID: 
Baron API Offers Weather Cross-section
By: Matt Thurber
Caption: The service provides detailed weather information for every altitude between takeoff and landing.
Word Count: 174
Weather information provider Baron is offering an application programming interface (API) for aviation, allowing application developers to add Baron’s information to their programs. In addition to providing quality-controlled weather information, Baron distributes it via a network of data centers “with built-in scalability designed to handle large usage demands,” according to the company.

Typical devices that run programs using Baron information are smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, installed multifunction displays, electronic flight bags and boat chartplotters.

More recently, Baron added the flight cross-section to its services. This “provides customers with detailed weather information for every altitude between takeoff and landing,” so developers can create vertical profile displays with temperature, winds, turbulence and icing along the planned route. In addition, other data provided globally by Baron as part of its API for aviation includes satellite imagery; significant weather; satellite-derived radar; winds and temperatures aloft; Metar reports; volcanic eruption data; and a lightning map that can display individual strikes or as a heat map showing where lightning activity is most intense.