WeatherWire Setup

If you want to use WeatherWire, the first step is to obtain a user name and password from the NWS.  Use this link to make that request.  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwws/news.html#NWWS_OI_Request  It may take up to two weeks to get your user name and password.

After you obtain your user name and password, you will need to purchase the WeatherWire ingest engine.  That can be done at this link. http://www.weathermessage.com/Purchase/tabid/124/ProdID/5/CatID/1/Weather_Message__Weather_Wire_Ingest.aspx

When you get your registration code, Click Start, Weather Message Net, Ingest, WxWw2000 (or WxWw2).  This will start the Weather Wire ingest program.  Click the Register option and enter your registration codes, then click Register.  Click File and Setup.  Enter your Weather Wire user name and password.  Click Save.  The program should connect to the Weather Wire server.

Start Weather Message Server Setup.  In the upper right hand corner, check the Weather Wire option.  This will tell the software to automatically start Weather Wire ingest.

You should restart your computer and verify that the WeatherWire ingest engine is automatically started with Weather Message.  Look for a blinking satellite icon in the system tray.

EMWIN Data Outage Announced

TO EMERGENCY MANAGERS WEATHER INFORMATION NETWORK /EMWIN/ NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE /NWS/ CUSTOMERS.

FROM GISC/RTH WASHINGTON DATA MANAGEMENT

SUBJECT: NOTICE TO ALL USERS OF THE EMWIN BROADCAST SERVICE:

EMWIN SERVICE DISRUPTION COMMENCING 1400 EDT 1800 UTC... FRIDAY.. MARCH 31.. 2017

1.  RTH/GISC WASHINGTON EMWIN SERVICES WILL BE DISRUPTED BY A SCHEDULED FACILITIES MAINTENANCE ACTIVITY FROM FRIDAY MARCH 31.. TO SUNDAY APRIL 2.. 2017.

2.  EXPECTED EMWIN SERVICE IMPACTS:

A.  DURATION:  ON OR ABOUT 1400 EDT /1800 UTC/ MARCH 31.. 2017.. TO ON OR ABOUT 1200 EDT /1600 UTC/ APRIL 2.. 2017.

B.  EMWIN FTP SERVICE WILL /NOT/ BE OPERATIONAL.

C. EMWIN SATELLITE BROADCAST FROM GOES EAST AND WEST WILL OPERATE IN A LIMITED PRODUCT /SERVICE BACKUP MODE.. BROADCASTING ONLY US NATIONAL TEXT PRODUCTS INCLUDING ALERTS AND WARNINGS.. PRODUCTS FROM INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS AND IMAGE FILES WILL /NOT/ BE INCLUDED.

D.  EMWIN BYTE BLASTER SERVICE IMPACT IS NOT LIKELY. SHOULD A SERVER CONNECTION FAIL.. USERS MAY WISH TO CONSULT THE FOLLOWING PUBLIC WEATHER MESSAGE WEB PAGE IN CONSIDERATION OF MANUALLY CONNECTING TO AN ACTIVE BYTEBLASTER SERVER:

HTTP://WWW.WEATHERMESSAGE.COM/ SUPPORT/BYTEBLASTERSTATUS.ASPX

3.  EMWIN SYSTEM STATUS UPDATES WILL BE PERIODICALLY UPDATED ON THE EMWIN WEB PAGE ISSUES TAB LOCATED HERE:

HTTP://WWW.NWS.NOAA.GOV/EMWIN/ INDEX.HTM#ISSUES

4.  EMWIN USERS ARE REMINDED TO CONSIDER INCORPORATING ONE OR MORE ADDITIONAL WARNING SOURCES.. OTHER THAN EMWIN.. AS A BACKUP IN THE EVENT OF AN EMWIN SYSTEM FAILURE.   THE NOAA WEATHER WIRE SERVICE NWWS.. IS AVAILABLE TO PROVIDE US NATIONAL WEATHER PRODUCTS VIA BOTH INTERNET AND SATELLITE BROADCAST PUSH SERVICES. EITHER CAN BE USED INDEPENDENTLY.. BUT THE INTERFACE WAS DEVELOPED SO BOTH CAN BE USED SIMULTANEOUSLY TO IMPROVE TIMELINESS OF DELIVERY.. SERVICE AVAILABILITY AND PRODUCT ACCOUNTABILITY.  FURTHER INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE HERE:

THE NOAA WEATHER WIRE SERVICE NWWS. WEB PAGE:

HTTP://WWW.NWS.NOAA.GOV/NWWS/

5.  PLEASE DIRECT ALL EMWIN QUESTIONS AND SERVICE ISSUES TO THE EMWIN SUPPORT STAFF AT:

NWS.EMWIN.SUPPORT@NOAA.GOV

6.  POC: ROBERT GILLESPIE.. ROBERT.GILLESPIE@NOAA.GOV / 301-427-9693

This information is also posted on the NWS Data Management
change notices web page. the url is listed below.

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ datamgmt/notices.shtml

Data Management
NCO Implementation & Data Services Branch Silver Spring
GISC/RTH Washington Sends

WxRadar Update Needed

The NWS changed their radar sites to use https instead of http.  Because of this WxRadar cannot download radar images.  We have made changes in WxRadar to use https.  A beta is now available to address this issue.

Texting Alerts to Mototrbo Radios

Weather Message now has the ability to text alerts to Mototrbo™ radios.

If you are interested in this capability, drop us an email.

Weather Message 4.2 Released

Weather Message V4.2 has been released. You can download the update at http://www.weathermessage.com/Downloads/WeatherMessage.aspx. For information on what has changed in this release, please read the release notes.

 

Note: Version 4.2 requires the Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0. Because of this requirement, version 4.0 will not run on Windows 2000 or older operating systems.

WxDataSave, WxLocal and the Retransmission applications have been respectively released along with Weather Message 4.0. If you are using any of these applications, they must be upgraded at the same time you upgrade Weather Message.

Thanks for all of your suggestions, bug reports and assistance with the software. Work will begin on version 4.3 right away. Watch the beta page for updates.

EMWIN Planned Outage

To:  AWIPS/NOAAPort Users. Emergency Managers Weather
     Information Network /EMWIN/ National Weather Services
     /NWS/ Customers. WAFS Users.  GTS Users. NWS Fax Chart
     Users

From:  RTH Washington Data Management

SUBJECT:  Notice to all users of the NWS Emergency Managers Weather Information network (EMWIN)
            
On 11 October 2016 beginning at 10:00 EST (14:00 UTC), the RTH-Washington Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN) is being upgraded for improved efficiency. The current EMWIN service will be affected for approximately thirty (30) minutes.  Broadcast product availability during this event follows:

    EMWIN will not acquire or transmit international products
    EMWIN will acquire and transmit US NWS Offices' and Centers' products
    EMWIN will acquire and transmit image files

The EMWIN full product broadcast should resume no later than 10:30 EST (14:30 UTC), 11 October 2016.

The EMWIN upgrade will be rescheduled in the event an NWS Critical Weather Day is declared (http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/cwd/).

POC: Patrick Gillis
Program Lead for ISCS and WIS Programs
NOAA/National Weather Service
301-427-9689
patrick.gillis@noaa.gov
WWW.Weather.gov/iscs

For NOAAPORT and NON-AWIPS Customers - if you have any questions regarding distribution or would like to add these products to your datastream please contact Data Management at ncep.pmb.dm@noaa.gov.

This information is also posted on the NWS Data Management change notices web page. the url is listed below.

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/datamgmt/notices.shtml

Data Management
NCO Production Management Branch Silver Spring
GISC/RTH Washington Sends

EMWIN Conference Call Notes 8/30/2016

The NWS made the following announcements:

1) The NWS is looking for someone to take over the EMWIN internet stream.
2) The NWS will be no longer hosting the EMWIN internet feed after July 2017.  We do not know if the internet stream will be available after July 2017.  If they do not find someone to take over the stream, the EMWIN internet feed will cease in July 2017. 
3) The new FTP server should come on-line in June 2017.  It will feature anonymous access.
4) EMWIN satellite users may experience interference from users of adjacent frequencies.  Dish Network purchased a portion of the frequencies adjacent to the GOES HRIT/EMWIN frequencies.  The interference would be from mobile devices.
5) EMWIN satellite users will need a new receiver and/or an upgrade to their receiver.
6) WeatherWire is recommended.
7) GOES-R will launch November 4, 2016.
8) The NWS will be testing GOES-R in February/March 2017.  They will be seeking EMWIN end user participation reports.  If you want to participate in testing, you will need a new receiver.  Let the EMWIN team know at NWS.EMWIN.Support@noaa.gov.

A thank you goes out to all the Weather Message users that asked questions during the conference call.

EMWIN Stakeholder Webinar

The US National Weather Service (NWS) will host its second Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN) Stakeholders Teleconference at 1400 EDT (1800 UTC) on August 30, 2016.  The information presented will include changes in the GOES-R satellite launch and EMWIN service transition schedules,  as well as additional details on the future EMWIN and GOES-R High Rate Information Transmission (HRIT) services.  Participants will have the opportunity to have their questions answered during the teleconference.  To participate in the teleconference, please register by going to;

EMWIN Stakeholder Webinar - August 30, 2016

Join us for a webinar on Aug 30, 2016 at 2:00 PM EDT.

Register now!

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1637010462758972674

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

View System Requirements

WxLocal - HTTP protocol error. 302 moved temporarily

WxLocal started reporting the error - HTTP protocol error. 302 moved temporarily - yesterday. This is the result of the NWS changing the URL for the METAR data.

I have created a registry fix that will address the change. You can download the fix using this link:

http://www.wxmesg.com/wxlocal.reg

When you download the file, you will want to select Run. There will be several security related messages that pop-up. Answer Yes to run this file.

Stop and restart WxLocal. It should then connect to the correct NWS server to download the METAR data.

I will be releasing a beta over the weekend to address the problem.

Openstreet Maps

I discovered yesterday that MapQuest will stop providing free Openstreet Map data on 7/11/2016.  If you are using this option, you will have to disable it after 7/11/2016.

WxMap can be configured to use another server to receive map tiles.  It is compatible with WMS (OpenGIS Web Map Service), WFS (OpenGIS Web Feature Service), WMTS (Web Map Tile Service), and ECWP (ERDAS).

 I am still looking to see if I can find another free source of data.

Mixed-Case Products

Effective Wednesday, September 7, 2016, the NWS will continue its transition of text products to a mixed-case text format/ expanded 95 ASCII character set at all Weather Forecast Offices

(WFOs) with the following text products:

Product Name                   AWIPS ID*

------------                   --------
Tornado Warning                TORXXX

Severe Thunderstorm Warning    SVRXXX

Severe Weather Statement       SVSXXX

Flash Flood Warning            FFWXXX

Flood Warning                  FLWXXX

Flash Flood Statement          FFSXXX

Flood Statement                FLSXXX

Extreme Wind Warning           EWWXXX

Short Term Forecast            NOWXXX

Special Weather Statement      SPSXXX

If you using text matching in any of your alarms for these products, please review those settings.

EMWIN Satellite Broadcast Outage

The NWS announced a 3 to 12 hour scheduled EMWIN Broadcast outage to occur on May 11, 2016 starting at 08:00 EDT.  The impact should be limited to GOES East.

Check the EMWIN Webpage http://www.nws.noaa.gov/emwin/ for more information.

EMWIN Service Transition - Internet Feed to be Discontinued

I attended the EMWIN Service Transition meeting yesterday.  The meeting discussed the transition to GOES R in 2017.  GOES R combines EMWIN and LRIT into one signal called HRIT/EMWIN. 

They announced that satellite users would need a new receiver.  I have not discussed this with the current EMWIN satellite vendors to see what they are planning.  At this point, it is clear that users of GOES R will need to plan on some sort of upgrade.  It is unknown at this time whether GOES R will replace GOES West or GOES East.

The disappointing news is the loss of the EMWIN Internet feed.  The EMWIN Internet feed is scheduled to be terminated at the end of December 2016.  All EMWIN Internet users will need to migrate to Weather Wire to continue to receive NWS products over the Internet.

As discussed on the conference call, the EMWIN Internet feed contains some international products along with graphics.  These are not transmitted over Weather Wire.  There are technical reasons that they cannot be transmitted using the Weather Wire XMPP protocol.

They announced that the EMWIN FTP service will return to anonymous access in December 2016.  Presently users have to request a user name and password, and supply the NWS with their IP address.

I am sorry to see the loss of the EMWIN Internet feed.  It has served the EMWIN community well for a long period of time.

I will post more information after the next transition meeting.

EMWIN Services Transition - 2016/2017 Webinar

The following data management message was posted today.

GOES-R, the next generation of NESDIS GOES satellites, is scheduled for launch in October 2016 and should become operational in by October 2017.  EMWIN data, NESDIS imagery and goes data collection system /DCS/ data will be transmitted together over the GOES-R HRIT/EMWIN transponder at 400kbps.  The increased bandwidth is expected to improve the throughput of the EMWIN data stream. The new service will require new receiver hardware as there will be a
receiver frequency shift to 1694.1 MHz, from 1692.7 MHz /EMWIN/ and 1691.0 /LRIT/ and a change in modulation for EMWIN users. A new antenna or antenna components may also be required.

The EMWIN data will be broadcast as complete files over the HRIT/EMWIN channel, which is a departure from the present EMWIN packet streaming format. The EMWIN file names will also change from the existing 12 character format, to a more lengthy WMO compliant format.  The EMWIN eight character files names currently in use will be included in the new file names, to assist current users with product identification.

The decision to place the GOES-R satellite at the east /75-degrees w/ or west /137-degrees w/ location has not yet been made.  A date for the decision has not been announced.

The NWS will be hosting and online webinar at 1400 EDT/ 1800 UTC, on April 14, 2016, to identify and review the upcoming changes to ENWUB services.  General registration for the webinar is available on the following links:

English:
https://docs.google.com/a/noaa.gov/forms/d/1JMnpmhsDHjo15OWAmhex1yAzVJ_wBiaBn1EVsv4UAvs/viewform

Spanish:
https://docs.google.com/a/noaa.gov/forms/d/1AirzvxRpXMuc4cOYUIG864D1WI-_OKsDTpHhNdJgqt8/viewform

Contact Robert Gillespie nws.Emwin.Support@noaa.Gov for further information. Information presented during the webinar will be made available online for reference and review.

Registering for WeatherWire

The NWS has a new website for registering for WeatherWire access.  Visit NWS OI Request to request a user name and password.

IPAWS Ingest

IPAWS is FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System.  It combines the Emergency Alert System (EAS), Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA), and National Weather Service Dissemination Systems.  The data stream uses the CAP 1.2 protocol.

If you want to know more about IPAWS, see http://www.fema.gov/alerting-authorities.  Users of this data stream are required to sign an agreement with FEMA.

The IPAWS data stream is based on pull technology.  That means that we have to poll the IPAWS server to receive new products.  Our default setting is to poll once per minute.  This is in contrast to the EMWIN, NWWS, and NoaaPort data streams, which are push streams.

We have been testing our new ingest engine for a couple of weeks.  This has allowed us to see the different products that appear on the stream.

Since this data stream is based on CAP 1.2, we needed a new decoder for Weather Message.  We have spent some time redesigning our decoder so that it will work with NWS and CAP products.  This was major work, but the results have been excellent.  We are now testing the new decoder to insure that there are no issues with decoding received products.

We are working on changes for our alarm setup.  There will be a new option to select different filtering criteria for CAP messages.  Weather products that appear on the IPAWS data stream will continue to be filtered by our existing alarm criteria.  Other messages, however will require some additional criteria.

Here is an example product that was received by our new ingest engine and processed by the new decoder.  This is not a weather product.  Weather products look similar to those received over our standard weather data streams.  Non-weather products however look different.  This format may change as we get more experience with the CAP products.

Id     : NC.000_1034_2015-12-02T14:59:44-05:00
Event  : Required Weekly Test
Sender : EMnet-NC.000,Melbourne,FL
Issued : 12/2/2015 1:59:44 PM
Expires: 12/2/2015 3:59:44 PM

Category  : Geo
Scope     : Public
Type      : Alert
Status    : Actual
Urgency   : Unknown
Severity  : Unknown
Certantity: Unknown
Response  :

Headline
EAS Required Weekly Test

Description
"THIS IS A REQUIRED WEEKLY TEST FROM THE NORTH CAROLINA STATE EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER "


Area: All North Carolina
Resource link: http://publicwarning.us/capresources/NC_000_ID1034_TM565F4D39_en-US.mp3
 

We will be posting more information as we get closer to a beta release.

NOAA Port New Channels

The Weather Message ingest program, WxPort, has been updated to process the three new NOAA Port channels.

The program will now allow you to enable ports 1208 - Experimental, 1209 - GOES West, and 1210 - GOES East.

Registering for EMWIN FTP Server Access

If you want access to the EMWIN FTP Server, you will need to register with the NWS.  See the following link for registration information.

NOAA Direct Readout Users Survey

The U.S. NOAA Direct Readout Satellite support group has recently installed a NOAA web site page that is just for users like you.   NOAA is trying to get an estimate of how many direct readout users are out there. 

There are some good reasons for this effort.  There is strong contention now for the satellite transmission band to be used for TV and cellular like services.  A large piece of the band spectrum was recently auctioned off for $45 billion U.S.  And there are efforts to hold another auction soon.  So, we need to show adequate usage of the direct readout environmental band, and that is where your participation is needed.

I am including the web site URL that only takes a couple minutes to register what services that you use or intend to use. When the web site opens just click on the “Register for Direct Readout” menu tab to go to the direct readout page.  NOAA is also working to provide on this web page the option of receiving notification of satellite anomalies and to give you the means to provide feedback on requirements for future satellites and systems.  Also, the ability for you to cancel out at any time you lose interest is in the works.  The important thing right now is to be counted as a user of satellite data.

 I am a former NOAA research scientist that has been asked to gather satellite data users to register on the new site.  Please do not underestimate the importance of your support.

Also, feel free to forward this information to anyone that you know that is a user of NOAA direct readout environmental satellite data; we want them all to register.

Some have had problems entering their antenna latitude/longitude location, if so just leave the box “unknown” checked as it is.  The important thing is to register. 

https://dcs4.noaa.gov/

https://dcs3.noaa.gov/

Thanks,

James.wydick@noaa.gov

Facebook Changes May 1, 2015

Facebook has made changes that will break Weather Message's ability to post status updates.  We have released Weather Message version 4.1 to address these changes.  It does require additional setup steps.  See the Facebook chapter, in the Supplement section, for the required setup steps.