Road Weather Information Stations with Street and Air Temperature Readings

Sensor stations on Seattle bridges and streets record street surface and ambient air temperature every second, averaging readings into a minute-by-minute time series. The City of Seattle updates this dataset hourly, storing only the most recent 48 hours of data. This provides a near-real-time view of localized road conditions.

Use Cases

• Predict road icing risks based on minute-level street surface temperature readings.
• Analyze microclimate variations across a city based on ambient air temperature sensor data.
• Develop real-time dashboards for transportation management using hourly-updated data.
• Correlate localized weather conditions with traffic flow or accident data.

Strengths

• Data is updated hourly, offering near-real-time access.
• Provides two distinct temperature measurements: street surface and ambient air.
• Records data at a high temporal resolution, with values averaged every minute from second-level readings.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data retention is limited to the most recent 48 hours, preventing long-term historical analysis.

Provenance

Source

City of Seattle

Collection Method

Derived from sensor stations placed on bridges and surface streets.

Time Range

Rolling 48-hour window.

Freshness

Updated hourly; last metadata update was 2026-03-22 03:37:06.075531.

Geography

Within Seattle city limits.