Rain Radar Europe
Live precipitation radar for the whole of Europe, from Ireland to the Urals and Norway to Sicily. Drag to explore, or press the button to jump to your own location.
The Short Answer
Europe has the densest and best-coordinated weather radar coverage in the world. More than 200 radars across over 30 countries feed a single shared network, and the resulting pan-European composite is built at 2 km resolution and refreshed every 15 minutes. In practice that means European rain radar is unusually reliable: there are very few genuine coverage gaps over land, and cross-border continuity is far better than in most parts of the world.
How Europe’s Radar Network Actually Works
Most continents have national radar networks that stop abruptly at political borders. Europe does not, and the reason is a programme called OPERA — the EUMETNET Operational Programme for the Exchange of Weather Radar Information.
For more than twenty years, OPERA has coordinated the exchange of operational radar data between Europe’s national meteorological services. Individual countries still own and run their own radars, but they share the output through a common standard, the OPERA Data Information Model (ODIM), which has become the European norm for radar data exchange.
Those national feeds arrive at OPERA’s operational data centre, known as Odyssey, typically every five minutes. Odyssey stitches them into continent-wide products: rain rate, maximum reflectivity and hourly accumulation, covering the whole of Europe at 2 km resolution with updates every quarter hour.
This matters more than it sounds. A storm crossing from Germany into Poland is tracked continuously rather than disappearing at the frontier and reappearing on a different scale with different colours. If you have ever used radar in a region without this kind of coordination, the difference is immediately obvious.
Where Coverage Is Strong, and Where It Thins
Even in Europe, coverage is not perfectly uniform.
- Excellent: Germany, France, the UK and Ireland, the Benelux countries, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy and the Nordic countries all have dense national networks with overlapping coverage.
- Good but with terrain effects: the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Carpathians and the Norwegian fjords. Radar beams travel in straight lines and mountains block them, creating shadows behind high ground. A valley on the far side of a ridge may show less rain than is actually falling.
- Thinner: parts of the Balkans, and the further reaches of Eastern Europe where radar density drops.
- Sea areas: the Atlantic west of Ireland, the central Mediterranean and the Norwegian Sea sit beyond reliable ground radar range. Precipitation there is estimated from satellite, which is coarser and slightly delayed — relevant if you are watching a system approach from the Atlantic before it makes landfall.
The general rule everywhere: the further from a radar station, the higher the beam is scanning, and the more likely low drizzle is missed entirely. Our guide on how accurate rain radar is covers this in detail.
How Rain Behaves Across Europe
Europe is small enough to see on one screen but climatically varied enough that rain arrives in genuinely different ways depending on where you are looking.
The Atlantic west
Ireland, the UK, western France, Portugal, north-west Spain and coastal Norway sit in the path of the Atlantic storm track. Rain here usually arrives as organised frontal bands sweeping in from the west, often hundreds of kilometres long. On radar they appear as long diagonal ribbons crossing the map, and because they are so well organised, extrapolating their movement works unusually well. If a band is 60 km away and moving at 50 km/h, you have a little over an hour.
Central Europe
Germany, Poland, Czechia, Austria and Hungary get both Atlantic fronts and, in summer, intense convective storms that form locally on hot afternoons. Those summer cells are small, fast-developing and often severe — on radar they appear as compact red or purple blobs that can go from nothing to torrential in under an hour. This is where checking radar rather than a morning forecast genuinely changes your afternoon.
The Mediterranean
Spain, southern France, Italy, Greece and the Balkans have a reversed pattern: dry summers and wet autumns. Autumn is the dangerous season, when a still-warm sea feeds extremely heavy rainfall. Spain’s gota fría and the flash floods of southern France and Italy typically occur between September and November, and they can deliver a month of rain in hours.
The Alps and other mountains
High ground forces air upward, which condenses moisture, so windward slopes receive far more rain than the valleys behind them. Radar can both exaggerate and miss mountain precipitation depending on beam geometry, so treat Alpine readings with more caution than lowland ones.
The Nordic north
Norway’s west coast is among the wettest places in Europe, with Atlantic moisture running straight into steep terrain. Inland Sweden and Finland are considerably drier, and in winter much of what radar detects there is snow rather than rain.
Rain, Snow and the Winter Problem
Radar detects precipitation, not its phase. In winter a returning signal over Scandinavia, the Alps or Eastern Europe may be snow, sleet or freezing rain rather than liquid. Snow also reflects radar differently from rain, so intensity readings in cold conditions are less dependable than in summer. If temperatures near you are close to freezing, check the live temperature map alongside the radar before assuming rain.
Watching Systems Before They Arrive
One of the more useful things about a continental view is watching weather approach several hours out. An Atlantic low tracking towards Ireland today will often be over the Netherlands tomorrow and Poland the day after. Zooming out to the whole continent shows you the sequence rather than just your own square of it.
To follow the steering flow itself, use the live wind map. For thunderstorm activity, the lightning map shows strikes as they are detected, which is the fastest way to tell an ordinary rain band from something more serious. Beyond about 90 minutes, switch to the 7-day forecast.
Follow Official Warnings
RainyMap shows conditions; it does not issue warnings. Europe’s national services — the Met Office, Météo-France, DWD, AEMET, KNMI, SMHI and their counterparts — publish official alerts, and Meteoalarm aggregates them across the continent. For flooding or severe weather, those take precedence over anything shown here. See our terms and weather disclaimer.
Elsewhere on RainyMap
For the global view, use the real-time rain map. To answer a specific question quickly, see where is it raining right now or run a rainfall check. City-level radar pages are indexed in the radar directory, and seasonal rainfall patterns for European destinations are covered in our destination weather guides.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a rain radar covering all of Europe?
Yes. Europe’s national radars are combined into a single pan-European composite through EUMETNET’s OPERA programme, drawing on more than 200 radars across over 30 countries. The composite covers the continent at 2 km resolution and updates every 15 minutes.
How accurate is rain radar in Europe?
Very accurate over land, because radar density is high and coverage overlaps across borders. Accuracy drops in mountainous terrain where beams are blocked, and over sea areas beyond radar range where precipitation is estimated from satellite instead.
How often does European rain radar update?
National radars typically deliver data every five minutes, and the pan-European composite is rebuilt every 15 minutes.
Does the radar show snow as well as rain?
Radar detects precipitation but not its phase, so winter returns over Scandinavia, the Alps and Eastern Europe may be snow or sleet. Snow reflects radar differently from rain, making intensity readings less reliable in cold conditions. Check temperature alongside radar when conditions are near freezing.
Why does rain in Europe usually move west to east?
Because the prevailing mid-latitude westerlies and the Atlantic storm track steer weather systems eastward across the continent. This is why a system over Ireland today is often over central Europe within a day or two.
Which parts of Europe have the weakest radar coverage?
Sea areas beyond ground radar range — the Atlantic west of Ireland, the central Mediterranean and the Norwegian Sea — along with parts of the Balkans and eastern Europe where radar density is lower. Mountain regions also have shadows behind high terrain.
Is the Europe rain radar free to use?
Yes. RainyMap is free, requires no account or app download, and works in any browser.
When is the wettest season in Europe?
It depends on the region. North-western Europe is wettest in autumn and winter when Atlantic systems are strongest. The Mediterranean is the reverse, with dry summers and a wet autumn peak between September and November that produces most of the region’s flash flooding.