swas blog

Valid Monday, March 8, 2010 – Friday, March 19, 2010 Prepared by:

NWS CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD – 300 PM EST March 05 2010

HAZARDS

• HIGH WINDS ACROSS THE ALASKA PANHANDLE MARCH 8-9.
• HEAVY RAIN AND SNOW FOR THE ALASKA PANHANDLE MARCH 8-9.
• HEAVY RAIN FOR PARTS OF THE CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN PLAINS AND MIDDLE AND LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY MARCH 8-9.
• HEAVY RAIN OVER THE SOUTHEAST MARCH 10-12.
• CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER IN WEST TEXAS MARCH 8-9.
• SEVERE DROUGHT FOR PARTS OF CALIFORNIA, ARIZONA, IDAHO, MONTANA, WASHINGTON, AND WISCONSIN. SOME RELIEF IS EXPECTED FOR MOST OF THESE AREAS EXCEPT FOR NORTHERN WISCONSIN.

DETAILED SUMMARY

We are looking into a possible outage of observation feeds that might have occurred between 1:00pm and 3:00pm EST today. We run a filter that blocks identical weather tweets from being sent out, which insures that you only receive an observation feed when the new data is different from the last sampling. The likelihood of the entire country maintaining their readings for roughly two hours is pretty slim, in fact, obtaining a winning lotto ticket is far more likely.

We have contacted the National Weather Service and asked them to look at this anomaly and inform us if their system was experiencing difficulties during that period. Currently, it appears as though all feeds are running normally but we felt it was important to identify the cause of the earlier outage.  We will update you here once we have heard back from NWS.

Update 10:45pm 03/04/10: We have been able to confirm the earlier outage was not caused by NWS, however we have now detected a new outage that is resulting from NWS’s system not updating properly that started earlier this evening. We have contacted NWS again and will update you as soon as we have more information.

Update 1:15pm 03/05/10: NWS contacted us around 8:00 am this morning to confirm there was a problem and suggest that a fix was almost completed. We have monitored the situation now to where we can state that all feeds are working normally.

Valid Monday, March 1, 2010 – Friday, March 12, 2010 Prepared by:
NWS CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD

300 PM EST FEBRUARY 26 2010

• HIGH WINDS FOR CENTRAL AND EASTERN NEW ENGLAND MAR 1.
• HEAVY SNOW FOR THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS, CENTRAL AND WESTERN CAROLINAS AND PARTS OF THE MID-ATLANTIC MAR 2-3.
• HEAVY PRECIPITATION FOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MAR 2-3.
• HIGH WAVES FOR THE WESTERN U.S. COASTLINE MAR 2-3.
• HIGH WINDS FOR SOUTHERN ALASKA AND THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS MAR 1-3.
• SEVERE DROUGHT IN PARTS OF WISCONSIN, ARIZONA, NEVADA, CALIFORNIA, IDAHO, MONTANA AND WASHINGTON; SOME RELIEF IS EXPECTED FOR ALL DROUGHT AREAS.

DETAILED SUMMARY

• …The Tsunami Advisory remains in effect for coastal areas of California and for Alaska from Sitka to Attu….
  Tsunami amplitudes along southeast Alaska and British Columbia coasts have are below danger levels. Amplitudes observed along the California coast are still above danger levels at a few locations. Tsunami amplitudes are arriving and increasing along the southern Alaska and Alaska Peninsula coasts.

Well over thirteen hours before this post was put up, swasalert.com’ s own Tsunami alert system was triggered, and many hours before most Tsunami alerts were issued by any other source. This feed is pulled from USGS earthquake alerts and filtered so that it only displays for the end user when the magnitude of an earthquake reaches the level that may cause a Tsunami.

When our alert is posted it displays a prefix of “Potential tsunami?” followed by the date, time, and a link. If you click on the link it will take you to a USGS page that displays a map of where the earthquake occurred. If the earthquake was located near you, it is advisable that you begin to monitor for watches and warnings being offered by your local governments. If the earthquake was centered on the other side of the world from your location, you can then rest easy.

To our knowledge this is the fastest alert available for Tsunamis anywhere in the world. These alerts are issued normally within seconds of a USGS posting, and we encourage you to spread the word of it’s availability to anyone who might live in an area that is vulnerable to Tsunamis or volcanic activity. Today’s quake provided ample warning because of the distances involved but that will not always be the case.

• …NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers are issuing updates on the Pacific tsunami…
  NOAA’s Tsunami Warning Centers are issuing Warnings and Supplemental Statements on the tsunami generated by the 8.8 earthquake.