A coffee cup and several devices displaying the Met Office app - phone, laptop and tablet.

Website ad units and technical details

Advertising opportunities available on our website.

General guidelines

Creatives should conform to the guidelines set out by the IAB. In particular for animation or video:

  • Max video and animation frame rate: 25 fps
  • For animation
    • Max CPU usage: 20%
    • Max length: 15 seconds
  • For video
    • Max CPU usage: 30%
    • Max length: 30 seconds

Colour guidance

The communication of our weather warnings is of paramount importance to public safety.

Our weather warnings are communicated using the colours - yellow, amber and red. The warnings are displayed on the Met Office home page across the top banner.

It is preferred that advertisers avoid sending creatives that contain block colours that may conflict and confuse these warnings. Where possible, advertisers should use secondary palette colours.

Example

The RAC were a sponsor of our UK weather pages. Their corporate colours are white on orange and directly clash with the amber warnings. To avoid confusion with the warning they used their secondary palette of orange on white.

 

Home page

Some of the widgets on the homepage have an Ad Unit for a sponsor banner.

  • Dimensions: 306 × 31 pixels
  • Max file size: 15 kB
  • Static image only. No animation, flash or video.

Targeting information

  • Ad Unit: metoffice
  • Customised criteria, kw=
    • weather, for the map of UK weather;
    • forecast, the the tabulated location specific five-day forecast;
    • textforecast, for the regional or UK text forecast;
    • events, for the events widget;
    • pollen, available seasonally;
    • uv, available seasonally.

 

General content pages

General content pages on the website display an MPU (medium rectangle) in the right-hand column.

  • Dimensions: 300 × 250 pixels
  • Max initial file size: 40 kB
  • Max polite file load size: 100 kB
  • Max user initiated file load size: 2.2 MB
  • Optionally expandable leftwards to 600 × 250 pixels on user click. Must be tested and approved by Met Office Webteam before go-live.

Targeting information

  • Ad Unit: same as first two parts of the URL e.g. services/business
    • The research Ad Unit and it's children are for non-commercial use only. It is set as a special Ad Unit so must be explicitly targeted.
    • The olympics Ad Unit is set as a special Ad Unit and must not be targeted.
  • Customised criteria
    • id=x, where x is the CMS article ID. This can be used to target a specific page.
    • kw=foo, bar, baz. A list of the meta-tag keywords on a page. Commonly used on news articles.

Weather pages

In addition to the MPU shown on the content pages, weather pages have a leaderboard Ad Unit between the header navigation and the page content.

  • Dimensions: 728 × 90 pixels
  • Max initial file size: 40 kB
  • Max polite file load size: 100 kB
  • Max user initiated file load size: 2.2 MB
  • Optionally expandable downwards to 728× 315 pixels on user click. Must be tested and approved by Met Office Webteam before go-live.

To the left of the leaderboard, there is a custom Ad Unit reserved for Met Office use only.

  • Dimensions: 242× 90 pixels
  • Max initial file size: 30 kB
  • To the right of the page title, there is an Ad Unit for a sponsor mini banner. It is expected these will be used as part of the same campaign as targeting a home page widget.
  • Dimensions: 176 × 31 pixels
  • Static image only. No animation, flash or video.
  • Max initial file size: 15 kB

Targeting information

  • Ad Unit: same as first two parts of the URL e.g. weather/forecast
  • Customised criteria not yet available:
    • End users chosen region/location
    • Current weather targeting

Weather forecast targeting

Available on the current and the old 'classic' weather page.

Forecast/observation tab

Which 'tab' the user is viewing on the weather forecast or observation pages.

  • tab=
    • fiveDay, tabulated forecast
    • last24hours, observed weather
    • map
    • meteo, timeline
    • tempRange, temperature range
    • regionalForecast, regional text forecast
    • extremes, regional extremes for the previous day

Weather

A list of the weather types for the next 24 hours and the day/night forecasts for 5 days ahead.

  • wx=
    • 0, clear sky
    • 1, sunny
    • 2, partly cloudy (night)
    • 3, sunny intervals
    • 4, dust
    • 5, mist
    • 6, fog
    • 7, medium-level cloud
    • 8, low-level cloud
    • 9, light rain shower (night)
    • 10, light rain shower (day)
    • 11, drizzle
    • 12, light rain
    • 13, heavy rain shower (night)
    • 14, heavy rain shower (day)
    • 15, heavy rain 
    • 16, sleet shower (night)
    • 17, sleet shower (day)
    • 18, sleet
    • 19, hail shower (night)
    • 20, hail shower (day)
    • 21, hail
    • 22, light snow shower (night)
    • 23, light snow shower (day)
    • 24, light snow
    • 25, heavy snow shower (night)
    • 26, heavy snow shower (day)
    • 27, heavy snow
    • 28, thundery shower (night)
    • 29, thundery shower (day)
    • 30, thunder storm
    • 31, tropical storm
    • 33, haze

Temperature

A list of temperatures forecast for the next 24 hours and the day/night forecasts for 5 days ahead, in degrees Celsius.

  • temp=
    • lt-10, less than -10 degrees Celsius
    • -10 to 30, the air temperature in degrees Celsius
    • gt30, greater than 30 degrees Celsius

Feels like temperature.

  • feel=
    • as above

Wind

List of wind speeds forecast for the next 24 hours and the day/night forecasts for 5 days ahead, according to the Beaufort wind scale.

  • wind=
    • 0, calm
    • 1, light air
    • 2, light breeze
    • 3, gentle breeze,
    • 4, moderate breeze
    • 5, fresh breeze
    • 6, strong breeze
    • 7, near gale
    • 8, gale
    • 9, strong gale
    • 10, storm
    • 11, violent storm
    • 12, hurricane force

Gust speed.

  • gust=
    • as above

UV Index

List of UV indices forecast for the next 24 hours and the day/night forecasts for 5 days ahead, using the WHO UV Index.

  • uv=
    • 0, night
    • 1 or 2, low
    • 3 to 5, moderate
    • 6 or 7, high
    • 8 to 10, very high
    • gt10, extreme

Country

The name of the country for the forecast. e.g England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Also available on world-weather forecast pages.

  • country=
    • name of country

Site prominence

How close a user has to zoom the map so see a location. For example, when zoomed out, only major cities show on the map.

  • zoom= 
    • 5, most prominent to 13, least prominent

Region

The region code for the forecast/observation selected

  • reg=
    • os, Orkney & Shetland
    • he, Highlands & Eilean Siar
    • gr, Grampian
    • st, Strathclyde
    • ta, Central, Tayside & Fife
    • dg, SW Scotland, Lothian Borders
    • ni, Northern Ireland
    • wl, Wales
    • nw, North West England
    • ne, North East England
    • yh, Yorkshire & Humber
    • wm, West Midlands
    • em, East Midlands
    • ee, East of England
    • sw, South West England
    • se, London & South East England
    • uk, United Kingdom

Location type

  • locType=
    • Airports and Heliport
    • Bays and Estuaries
    • Beaches
    • Observing Site
    • Residential
    • Sports and Outdoor Recreation
    • Summits, mountain summits
    • YHA, current and former youth hostels

Location ID

  • locId=
    • a unique identifying number for the location of a forecast. Can be used to target a specific city.

Behavioural targeting

You may have noticed advertisements occasionally appear to 'follow' you when browsing across different websites. This is known as behavioural targeting; to opt out of Google behavioural targeting please see instructions at adssettings.google.com