Topic: IEMBot/NWSChat - Web Based Alert Service

[gfritz]

I’d like to share some insight on a service which provides access to NWS warnings the moment they are issued – with this service you will often receive warnings 15 to 30 seconds before they are transmitted over NOAA Weather Radio. The service is IEMBOT which is a set of programs running on the Iowa Mesonet server and is intended to aid in the dissemination and use of NWS warnings by their chat partners. While NWS chatrooms are closed to public access the JavaScript client web interface at https://weather.im/iembot/ is open to the public and updates every 8 seconds providing instant access to warnings.   Since IEM makes the alerts available via JASON we’ve taken this approach one step further by directly ingesting the service to process the warnings in support of our EMA operations. The result is an Emergency Management Office application which verbally announces “Tornado Warning” or “Severe Thunderstorm Warning” when such warnings are issued for nearby counties as severe weather approaches. When a tornado warning is issued for Dubois County in Indiana our computers sound off “Attention....A Tornado Warning Has Been Issued For Dubois County….Repeating…” and our emergency callout system can be engaged before the public receives the warning over NWR. Here are links to some of the audio alerts issued by our system:    http://weatherspotter.net/Tornado_Warning.mp3     http://weatherspotter.net/Severe_Thunderstorm_Warning.mp3

[Jáchym]

Nice, but no need to shout here, which you did last time as well .

[gfritz]

Thanks Jáchym  - appreciate the feedback.  I updated the post.  I'm a bit new to forum posting so hopefully I got it posted better this time.

[Jáchym]

No problem
Your site is Im sure quite useful for someone from that area.