# Question about the Tempest Observation Record format **URL:** \ **Category:** Developers\ **Tags:** tempest\ **Created:** [March 30, 2026, 11:47pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116 "2026-03-30T23:47:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chris.king](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/chris.king/32/1845_2.png) [@chris.king](https://community.tempest.earth/u/chris.king)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2026, 11:47pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/1 "2026-03-30T23:47:54Z")
It’s been a while since I came back because my scripts have just been working properly. But my sky unit died (fell off the roof) and so I installed my backup Tempest unit which means I have to update my scripts. The documentation [here](https://apidocs.tempestwx.com/reference/observation-record-format) shows the observation record format and it lists 21 fields for a Tempest observation. But when I pull the data down I see 22 fields and that last field seems to be doing something. Any idea what it is? Here’s a sample record: | | | | --- | --- | | status | { status\_code: 0, status\_message: “SUCCESS” } | | device\_id | 464524 | | type | “obs\_st” | | bucket\_step\_minutes | 1 | | obs | | | [0…99] | | | 0 | | | 0 | 1771200000 | | 1 | 0.33 | | 2 | 0.48 | | 3 | 0.66 | | 4 | 213 | | 5 | 3 | | 6 | 984.53 | | 7 | 15.7 | | 8 | 57 | | 9 | 15630 | | 10 | 0.7 | | 11 | 130 | | 12 | 0 | | 13 | 0 | | 14 | 0 | | 15 | 0 | | 16 | 2.74 | | 17 | 1 | | 18 | 0 | | 19 | 0 | | 20 | 0 | | 21 | 0 | | 22 | 3 | ---
**Author:** ![mabeatty1978](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/mabeatty1978/32/15139_2.png) [@mabeatty1978](https://community.tempest.earth/u/mabeatty1978)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2026, 6:57pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/2 "2026-03-31T18:57:59Z")
> [@chris.king](#): > > 464524 What’s your code look like? I just pulled mine up and it’s only 0-21. Could the 22 because you iterating through the array too far? ---
**Author:** ![chris.king](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/chris.king/32/1845_2.png) [@chris.king](https://community.tempest.earth/u/chris.king)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2026, 1:58am UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/3 "2026-04-01T01:58:30Z")
No code, just doing a direct call from the browser and looking at the returned JSON: [https://swd.weatherflow.com/swd/rest/observations/?device\_id=464524&token=[token]&day\_offset=42](https://swd.weatherflow.com/swd/rest/observations/?device_id=464524&token=%5Btoken%5D&day_offset=42) ---
**Author:** ![vinceskahan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/vinceskahan/32/2785_2.png) [@vinceskahan](https://community.tempest.earth/u/vinceskahan)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2026, 5:54pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/4 "2026-04-02T17:54:49Z")
Can’t see it - unauthorized. You might want to attach the JSON output so we can see what it is returning natively without you doing any processing of what it returned. Short answer I suppose is that you need to practice defensive programming and be able to gracefully handle unexpected input. ---
**Author:** ![chris.king](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/chris.king/32/1845_2.png) [@chris.king](https://community.tempest.earth/u/chris.king)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 6:30am UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/5 "2026-04-03T06:30:42Z")
My original message had the formatted JSON data but here’s a sample of the raw output for 4 observations: ```auto {"status":{"status_code":0,"status_message":"SUCCESS"},"device_id":464524,"type":"obs_st","bucket_step_minutes":1,"obs":[[1771372800,0,0.53,2.14,123,3,987.52,15.2,52,11759,0.53,98,0,0,0,0,2.78,1,6.93012,0,3.829395,0,23],[1771372860,0,0.45,1.13,76,3,987.51,15.1,52,10578,0.47,88,0,0,0,0,2.78,1,6.93012,0,3.829395,0,2],[1771372920,0,0.11,0.67,33,3,987.42,14.9,53,9677,0.43,80,0,0,0,0,2.78,1,6.93012,0,3.829395,0,2],[1771372980,0,0.46,1,229,3,987.4,14.8,52,9158,0.41,76,0,0,0,0,2.78,1,6.93012,0,3.829395,0,2] ``` ---
**Author:** ![vinceskahan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/vinceskahan/32/2785_2.png) [@vinceskahan](https://community.tempest.earth/u/vinceskahan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/6 "2026-04-03T15:57:05Z")
Thanks. I see it now. Fair question. What ‘is’ that item ? So frustrating when a published API isn’t updated when they change something and don’t document it. All you can do is ignore the unexpected extra item for now. Did you open a support ticket ? ---
**Author:** ![chris.king](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/chris.king/32/1845_2.png) [@chris.king](https://community.tempest.earth/u/chris.king)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 6:52pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/7 "2026-04-03T18:52:32Z")
I figured I’d go through the here first and then open a ticket. That bit of data isn’t going to break my scripts, it’d just be nice to know if it was something useful 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mabeatty1978](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/mabeatty1978/32/15139_2.png) [@mabeatty1978](https://community.tempest.earth/u/mabeatty1978)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2026, 12:51am UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/8 "2026-04-04T00:51:28Z")
I agree the support ticket is the way to go. Tempest says they don’t actively monitor this community with any regularity, and I believe them. They are responsive to support tickets though. Report back when you get an answer. ---
**Author:** ![chris.king](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.tempest.earth/chris.king/32/1845_2.png) [@chris.king](https://community.tempest.earth/u/chris.king)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2026, 5:39am UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/question-about-the-tempest-observation-record-format/28116/9 "2026-04-10T05:39:50Z")
Apparently it was latency field that shouldn’t have been made available to the public and now isn’t.