HungaroMet Hungarian Meteorological Data Guide: Stations & Export

Explore Hungarian weather stations, understand HungaroMet observation frequencies from 10-minute to century series, and export observations for analysis.
Author

Climate Explorer Team

Modified

September 19, 2026

Open the HungaroMet Explorer

Wide HungaroMet Explorer map showing Hungarian weather stations across counties, the national station extent, and 10-minute, hourly, daily, monthly, century and date controls in the sidebar

HungaroMet Explorer map showing weather stations across Hungary

Quick start

  1. Open the explorer and choose your temporal resolution: 10 Minutes, Hourly, Daily, Monthly, Century (1901+), or Historical (1870+).
  2. Set a date range or accept the adaptive default window for your chosen resolution.
  3. Filter by Hungarian county (Vármegye / Budapest) or select a station directly on the map or in Station Info.
  4. Inspect the Dashboard plots, glassmorphic summary KPI cards, and climate trend indicators.
  5. Switch to the Data subtab and click Download CSV to export the filtered observations.

What this guide helps you do

The HungaroMet Explorer provides independent, interactive access to meteorological station observations published by HungaroMet Nonprofit Zrt. (formerly the Hungarian Meteorological Service, OMSZ) through its open data repository.

Climate Explorer ingests station metadata, coordinates, and multi-segment historical observation archives. It standardizes timestamps into UTC/Date formats, sanitizes sentinel placeholders (-999 / -999.0 to true null values), computes derived parameters such as dew point via the Magnus-Tetens formula, and produces clean CSV exports.

This guide explains how to navigate Hungarian observing networks, understand resolution span limits, interpret quality flags and sentinels, and export analysis-ready station series.

1. Choose the resolution and date window

The resolution determines the underlying HungaroMet dataset, the available parameters, and the maximum query span allowed by the interface.

HungaroMet Explorer resolution and request-window limits
Explorer mode Source directory / files Maximum accepted window Best use
10 Minutes observations_hungary/10_minutes/ 31 days Convective rain rates, peak wind gusts, frontal passages
Hourly observations_hungary/hourly/ 366 days (1 year) Diurnal temperature cycles, sea-level pressure trends
Daily observations_hungary/daily/ Multi-decade (2002–present) Seasonal extremes, daily temperature envelopes, precipitation sums
Monthly observations_hungary/monthly/ Multi-decade (2002–present) Long-term monthly climate summaries and multi-year anomalies
Century (1901+) climate/station_data_series/1901-2025/ 125 years (1901–2025) Long-term homogenized climate warming trends and ETCCDI indices
Historical (1870+) climate/station_data_series/1870-2025/ 156 years (1870–2025) Secular temperature and precipitation baselines across Hungary

Selecting 10 Minutes initially bounds the calendar to the most recent 7 days (maximum span 31 days). Selecting Hourly defaults to a 30-day window (maximum span 366 days). Daily, Monthly, and Century series support multi-year and multi-decade spans. If a requested date range exceeds the valid window, the interface clamps the span and issues a visual notification.

Automated versus Reference Series

The Automatic Network comprises ~342 automated stations operating primarily from 2002 to the present with high-frequency telemetry. The Century and Historical datasets comprise curated reference stations (such as Budapest, Szeged, Debrecen, Pécs, and Szombathely) whose records have been digitized, quality controlled, and homogenized across historical instrument transitions.

2. Station classifications & county filtering

Hungary’s territory is organized into 19 counties (vármegyék) plus the capital city of Budapest. The HungaroMet explorer standardizes regional names:

  • Bács-Kiskun, Baranya, Békés, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Budapest, Csongrád-Csanád, Fejér, Győr-Moson-Sopron, Hajdú-Bihar, Heves, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, Komárom-Esztergom, Nógrád, Pest, Somogy, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, Tolna, Vas, Veszprém, and Zala.

Finding a station

  • County Dropdown: Filter the map and station selector to a specific county or choose “All”.
  • Interactive Map: Stations are rendered as elevation-coded circle markers using MapLibre GL. Marker colors interpolate between lowland plains (e.g. Szeged, ~80 m) and mountain summits (e.g. Kékestető, 1014 m).
  • Hover & Click: Hovering displays the station name, ID, county, elevation, coordinates, and active period. Clicking a marker selects the station and transitions to the Dashboard.

3. Meteorological parameters & units

Depending on the chosen resolution, observations include the following standardized meteorological fields:

Standardized meteorological parameters in the HungaroMet Explorer
Parameter Key Parameter Name Units Available Resolutions Notes
temp / MeanTemp Mean Air Temperature °C All resolutions Measured at 2 m height
temp_max / MaxTemp Maximum Air Temperature °C 10m, Hourly, Daily, Monthly, Century Daily maximum or sub-daily interval peak
temp_min / MinTemp Minimum Air Temperature °C 10m, Hourly, Daily, Monthly, Century Daily minimum or sub-daily interval trough
precip / Precipitation Precipitation Sum mm All resolutions Tipping bucket or weighing gauge sum
wind_speed / WindSpeed Mean Wind Speed m/s 10m, Hourly, Daily, Monthly Anemometer average at 10 m height
wind_gust_max / WindGust Maximum Wind Gust m/s 10m, Hourly, Daily Peak 3-second gust
rh / RelativeHumidity Relative Humidity % 10m, Hourly, Daily, Monthly Capacitive sensor reading (0–100%)
pressure / Pressure Sea-Level Pressure hPa 10m, Hourly, Daily, Monthly Barometric pressure reduced to MSL
solar_global / Radiation Global Solar Radiation J/cm² or W/m² 10m, Hourly, Daily, Monthly Pyranometer global horizontal irradiance
soil_temp_5cm / SoilTemp Soil Temperature (5 cm) °C 10m, Hourly, Daily Multi-depth soil thermistor
dew_point Dew Point Temperature °C 10m, Hourly, Daily Derived via Magnus-Tetens approximation

4. Quality flags & sentinel handling

HungaroMet raw text and CSV files denote missing measurements, sensor dropouts, or unverified readings using numeric sentinel flags: - -999 and -999.0: Represent missing observations.

The Climate Explorer ingestion pipeline automatically converts these values to NA_real_ (null). When computing descriptive statistics (mean, minimum, maximum, cumulative precipitation), null values are excluded with na.rm = TRUE.

Completeness criteria for climate indices

When calculating annual ETCCDI climate indices (e.g. Frost Days \(T_{min} < 0^\circ\text{C}\), Summer Days \(T_{max} \ge 25^\circ\text{C}\), Hot Days \(T_{max} \ge 30^\circ\text{C}\), Tropical Nights \(T_{min} \ge 20^\circ\text{C}\)): - A year must contain at least 320 valid daily observations to be included in trend evaluations. - Ongoing incomplete years are explicitly excluded from annual warming rate calculations to prevent seasonal distortion.

5. Exporting data for analysis

To export observations for external analysis in Python, R, Excel, or GIS tools:

  1. Select your desired station, resolution, and date range in the explorer.
  2. In the main panel, navigate to the Dashboard tab and click the Data subtab.
  3. Verify that the table columns and row counts match your expected selection.
  4. Click the Download CSV button above the data table.
  5. The downloaded file contains standardized column headers (Date, MeanTemp, MaxTemp, MinTemp, Precipitation, WindSpeed, WindGust, RelativeHumidity, Pressure, Radiation, StationID, StationName, County).

6. Troubleshooting

No station appears on the map

Adjust the county filter, widen the selected date window, or choose a coarser temporal resolution. A station appears only when its historical operating period overlaps the requested calendar window and provides data for the active resolution mode.

A parameter column or chart is blank

Sensor suites vary by station type across Hungary. While synoptic observatories and major agrometeorological stations measure solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, and multi-depth soil temperatures, auxiliary rainfall posts record only air temperature and precipitation totals.

Values show sentinels such as -999 or -999.0

In raw HungaroMet archives, -999 and -999.0 represent missing measurements or telemetry outages rather than numeric zeroes. Climate Explorer automatically sanitizes these placeholders to null (NA) values before plotting series or computing summary statistics.

Century series values differ from unadjusted daily records

The 10 Century climate reference stations (1901–2025) are homogenized by HungaroMet climatologists using the MASH (Multiple Analysis of Series for Homogenization) procedure. Homogenization removes non-climatic breakpoints caused by historical station relocations, instrument replacements, and observing practice shifts.

Exporting data and restoring deep-linked station views

To export observation tables, navigate to the Dashboard tab, switch to the Data subtab, and click Download CSV. To share or restore a specific station and date selection, use the canonical permalink structure /explorers/hungaromet/{resolution}/{county}/{station}/ to automatically restore the full view state.