The Norwegian Meteorological Institute

What The Norwegian Meteorological Institute does

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute (Meteorologisk institutt, MET Norway) is Norway's national meteorological service, operating since 1866 as a state entity under the Ministry of Climate and Environment. Headquartered in Oslo with offices in Bergen and Tromsø, the institute delivers weather forecasts, hazard warnings, climate monitoring (with records extending back to 1900), and specialized marine and Arctic services to private individuals, emergency services, aviation operators, maritime and offshore industries, and research institutions. The Yr.no consumer weather portal, co-operated with Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, provides the institute with near-universal domestic reach and global consumer visibility.

The institute's technical foundation comprises an in-house stack of open-source meteorological software — including the Diana 2D visualization tool, the Kvalobs quality-control framework, the WDB weather and water database built on PostgreSQL/PostGIS, the FIMEX format-conversion library, and the METAMOD scientific data portal — most co-developed with the Swedish SMHI. This stack supports both internal operations and external developer access through free public APIs (api.met.no, frost.met.no) and open download services licensed under NLOD and Creative Commons 4.0 BY. Research collaborations include the European EMEP atmospheric transport program, the UK Met Office's Crowd-Grid initiative, and operational integration with the Copernicus Marine Service for oceanographic and forensic drift modelling.

MET Norway's commercial surface is narrow by design. Core meteorological data and forecasts are provided free to the public and to global developers, while enterprise customers access customized data delivery through Service Level Agreements carrying start-up and annual management fees. A separate training business delivers aviation weather observer certification (METAR, helideck reports, SYNOP) and periodic refresher courses to Norwegian continental shelf personnel, priced between kr. 5,000 and kr. 33,800 per participant. The institute is funded primarily through Norwegian state budget allocations, with no disclosed private investment, venture capital, or external ownership stake.

Name

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute

Legal name

Meteorologisk institutt

Website

https://met.no

Company type

Private

Founded year

1866

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

501–1,000 employees

Short description

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET Norway) is Norway's national meteorological service, providing weather forecasts, hazard warnings, climate monitoring, and Arctic/sea-area services to the public, emergency services, aviation, maritime, and research sectors, delivered through open data APIs, the Yr.no consumer portal, and aviation training courses.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Meteorological Services

NAICS

Administration of Environmental Quality Programs (9241), Administration of Air and Water Resource and Solid Waste Management Programs (924110)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Environmental Monitoring, Data & Reporting (Air/Water/Soil) (BPAIAMAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Climate Policy, Governance & NDC Support (BPADALAA), Environmental, Climate & Sustainability Standards & Reporting Cooperation (BPADANAI)

Keywords

• Weather forecasting services
• Climate monitoring data
• Meteorological open data
• Aviation weather training
• Ocean arctic forecasting

Headquarters

HQ city

Oslo

HQ country

Norway

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Government Funding: As Norway's national meteorological institute, funded primarily through government appropriations to provide essential public weather and climate services
2. Free Public Data Services: Core meteorological data and products are freely available to the public under NLOD and Creative Commons 4.0 BY license; open download services provided at no charge
3. Customized Data Delivery: Service level agreements for customized data delivery with dedicated infrastructure, monitoring and alerting - incurs start-up and annual management charges
4. Professional Training Courses: Weather observation training courses for aviation personnel on Norwegian continental shelf - METAR basic course, helideck report courses, SYNOP courses, and periodic refresher courses

Pricing tiers

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

MET Norway provides authoritative weather forecasts, climate monitoring, and ocean/Arctic observation services for Norway. Its offerings include free public data via open APIs and downloads, customized enterprise data delivery through service-level agreements, and professional training courses for aviation weather observers on the Norwegian continental shelf. The institute also develops and maintains a suite of open-source meteorological software tools (Diana, Kvalobs, WDB, FIMEX, METAMOD) used internally and released to the global community.

Product overview

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET Norway) operates as a government meteorological service providing a comprehensive portfolio of weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and marine services. The core offering includes weather forecasts and warnings for private individuals, emergency services, and public agencies, supplemented by climate analysis services and specialized sea and high north monitoring. MET Norway provides free open data access through api.met.no, frost.met.no, and open download services, all available under NLOD and Creative Commons 4.0 BY licenses. The organization maintains an active open-source software portfolio including Diana (2D visualization), Kvalobs (quality control), WDB (weather database), FIMEX (data conversion), METAMOD (scientific data portal), jtimeseries (time series), and the EMEP atmospheric transport model. Aviation training services include METAR and SYNOP courses for offshore personnel.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• MET Weather Forecasting Services
• MET Climate Services
• Sea and High North Services
• api.met.no
• frost.met.no
• Free Meteorological Data Services
• Yr.no
• METAR Training Courses
• Helideck Report Observation Course
• Periodic Professional Update (PFO)
• Diana (Open Source Visualization)
• FIMEX (Open Source)
• EMEP MSC-W Model (Open Source)

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration6 records

AI capability3 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• NRK (Norsk Rikskringkasting)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-operation with NRK on Yr.no, Norway's most popular weather service. NRK is responsible for the frontend of Yr.no while MET provides the meteorological data and forecasts.
• SMHI (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute)coreTechnology or IntegrationCollaboration on development of Kvalobs (KVOSS) for quality control of geophysical data and WDB (Weather and Water Database) for meteorological and hydrological data storage.
• UK Met OfficeminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch collaboration where MET adapted software for the Crowd-Grid project, combining quality-controlled public observations with official weather station data to enhance local temperature details across the UK.
• Copernicus Marine ServicecoreTechnology or IntegrationProvides oceanographic and atmospheric data used in OpenDrift Leeway model for operational ocean modelling and forensic investigations of shipwreck events.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI): Denmark's national meteorological service; comparable scale, statutory mandate, and product mix including free open data, aviation services, and Greenland/Arctic coverage, positioning it as a Nordic direct peer.
• UK Met Office: United Kingdom's national meteorological service; comparable statutory mandate for public weather warnings and aviation services, and a recent active research partner (Crowd-Grid dataset), making it the most analytically similar peer operating at larger national scale.
• Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI): Sweden's national meteorological and hydrological institute; jointly develops Kvalobs and WDB software with MET Norway and serves an identical Nordic governmental mandate covering weather, climate, and hydrology for the general public, emergency services, and aviation.
• Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD): Germany's national meteorological service under the Federal Ministry of Transport; offers the same combination of public forecasts, free open data, aviation services, and open-source tooling, and competes with MET Norway in pan-European meteorological research.
• Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI): Finland's national meteorological institute; comparable Nordic mandate covering public forecasts, aviation, marine, and Arctic services with overlapping research collaborations and a similar Arctic focus.

Others

• EUMETSAT: European intergovernmental satellite agency supplying meteorological satellite data that MET Norway relies on for its forecasts and High North services; not a direct competitor but a critical upstream data provider and ecosystem participant.

Broad incumbents

• Météo-France: France's national meteorological service; significantly larger in scope and budget, with a similar public-service mandate plus global commercial activities through its subsidiaries, serving as a broad incumbent benchmark for MET Norway's potential international expansion.
• NOAA National Weather Service: United States' civilian weather service under NOAA; comparable statutory role and free open-data posture at much larger scale, with global influence on standards and open-source tooling relevant to MET Norway's developer ecosystem.

Emerging players

• OpenWeather: Commercial weather API provider aggregating data from national meteorological institutes (including MET Norway) and offering paid developer access globally; represents the commercial competitive layer that benefits from MET's free-data policy and could erode its end-user mindshare.
• ECMWF: European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts; an intergovernmental organization producing global numerical weather prediction data that MET Norway both consumes and contributes to, making it a peer at the research and supercomputing layer rather than consumer weather.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/metno
• Facebookfacebook.com/Yr
• Instagraminstagram.com/yrbilder
• Xx.com/Meteorologene

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about The Norwegian Meteorological Institute