Switzerland - Soaring Weather API
High-resolution WRF forecasts across the entire Swiss Alps. Interlaken, Verbier, Grindelwald, Fiesch, Engelberg, Crans-Montana, and every coordinate in between - thermal strength, MSL cloudbase, soaring height, convergence, served as JSON four times a day.
Model specifications
What you get for Switzerland coverage
All fields available now at 4 km.
Thermal Strength
wstar_ms - thermal updraft velocity in m/s
Soaring Height
hglider_agl_m + hglider_msl_m - usable thermalling height
Cloudbase
cloudbase_agl_ft + cloudbase_msl_m, Cu potential, OD risk
Wind
surface_wind_* plus wind_925_*, wind_850_*, wind_800_*, wind_700_*
Trigger Temperature
thermal_trigger_temp_c - surface temperature at which thermals fire
Day Rating
day_rating - poor, marginal, fair, good, excellent
Corridor Sampling
Weather along a route - time-aware available
Sounding Profile
Full vertical profile - temp, dewpoint, wind
Query Switzerland forecasts in seconds
Pass region, resolution, and any covered coordinate - the API resolves the nearest model grid point and returns the forecast.
Request
curl "https://api.convek.dev/v1/site?region=ch&resolution=4km&lat=46.1&lon=7.23&time=13:00" \-H "Authorization: Bearer cvk_live_your_key_here"
Response
{"valid_date": "2026-05-09","valid_time": "13:00","rasp_model": "ch/4km","site": {"wstar_ms": 2.1,"hglider_agl_m": 963,"cloudbase_agl_ft": 3653,"cloudbase_msl_m": 2684,"surface_wind_speed_ms": 3.3,"surface_wind_dir_deg": 22,"day_rating": "fair"}}
About soaring weather in Switzerland
Switzerland has the densest soaring population per square kilometre in Europe and an absurdly varied terrain mix. Lake-edge sites like Niederhorn, classic Alpine launches at Interlaken and Grindelwald, the high Valais bowls above Fiesch and Verbier, the Bernese Oberland 4000ers, the Mythen and Engelberg ridges - all in one box.
Swiss thermals punish any model coarser than about 5 km. Thermals trigger on south-facing rock faces hours before they fire on the valley floor. Cloudbase climbs through 4000 m on the best days, then collapses 800 m in twenty minutes when the föhn breaks. The wind picture switches between valley-driven and synoptic flow through the afternoon. Most of that resolves at 4 km. Almost none of it resolves at 13 km.
MSL cloudbase is the field Alpine pilots end up using most. Launch altitudes vary by 2000 m between Swiss sites, so the AGL number on its own can be misleading when planning a transition. Convek serves both AGL and MSL. The day-window calculations and sounding labels use Europe/Zurich.
Switzerland coordinate range
The live ch/4km region covers the Swiss Alps and surrounding terrain. Valid coordinates for queries sit inside this bounding box:
Latitude
45.3° N - 48.3° N
Longitude
5.2° E - 11.2° E
Requests outside this domain return 400 Bad Request with a message explaining the coordinates are outside ch coverage. See the coverage overview for other regions.
Start querying Switzerland soaring data now.
Free tier - 25 queries/day. No credit card required.