Topic: possible API forecast outage end of December 2024

[Jasiu / JJ]

Via https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/pdf_2023_24/pns24-66_potential_api_outage.pdf

NOUS41 KWBC 161305
PNSWSH
Public Information Statement 24-66
National Weather Service Headquarters Silver Spring MD
905 AM EDT Wed Oct 16 2024

To: Subscribers:
-NOAA Weather Wire Service
-Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
-NOAAPort
Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees

From: George Jungbluth, Director
Office of Dissemination

Subject: Potential API Gridded Forecast Data Outage from December 22,
2024 through January 1, 2025

The Office of Dissemination (DIS) and the National Centers for
Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Central Operations (NCO) are working on a
critical bug fix that impacts the dissemination of gridded forecast data
via the NWS Application Programming Interface (API) that occurs near the
end of the calendar year. We intend to implement this bug fix in time to
avoid an outage. In the event that the bug fix cannot be implemented
before December 22, gridded forecast data will not be available via the
API between December 22, 2024 through January 1, 2025. This public
information statement is intended to inform users of this potential
outage and offer alternatives to help reduce the impact to customers.

If realized, this problem will result in errors when users make requests
to the API for gridded forecast data. Below are examples of the types of
requests that will fail:

https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/PQR/107,99/forecast
https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/SGX/59,65/forecast/hourly

The response returned to the user will be similar to this:
{
"correlationId": "eb6a80a",
"title": "Service Unavailable",
"type": "https://api.weather.gov/problems/ServiceUnavailable",
"status": 503,
"detail": "An upstream data source is temporarily unavailable.
Please try again later.",
"instance": "https://api.weather.gov/requests/eb6a80a"
}

The following alternatives may help users reduce the impact of this data
outage.

Using the forecast.weather.gov Web Service:

The forecast for a location is available via a single call to
forecast.weather.gov using the latitude and longitude coordinates for
that location:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=$LAT&lon=$LON&FcstType=$FORMAT

where $LAT and $LON are in decimal degrees and $FORMAT is either DWML or
JSON.

Example:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=39.5&lon=-94.5&FcstType=dwml

Using the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) Web Service:

The forecast for a location is available in various formats via requests
to web services that deliver NDFD data. Details on what services are
available and how to use them can be found at:

https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/mdl/ndfd.

We will send a follow up notice on or about November 22, 2024, to provide
an update.

To report problems or operational issues with the API or
forecast.weather.gov applications, please contact:

NCEP Central Operations Tech Control
nco.ops@noaa.gov

To report problems or issues related with the NDFD web services, please
contact:

nws.ndfd@noaa.gov

Please send all other comments and questions to:

nws.webfeedback@noaa.gov

National Public Information Statements are online at:

https://www.weather.gov/notification/

NNNN

[saratogaWX]

Yep.. I saw that too.  If the outage is expected (their patches not implemented), then I'll recast advforecast2.php V4.05 (the one that uses MapClick) in the distribution in time for the outage, then revert to the API version after the outage is resolved.

Sigh..

[K6GKM]

Update...  Not very optimistic.

NOUS41 KWBC 251845 AAA
PNSWSH

Public Information Statement 24-66 Updated
National Weather Service Headquarters Silver Spring MD
145 PM EST Mon Nov 25 2024
To:         Subscribers:
             -NOAA Weather Wire Service
             -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
             -NOAAPort
             Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees

From:    George Jungbluth, Director
             Office of Dissemination

Subject: Updated: Potential API Gridded Forecast Data Outage from December 22, 2024 through January 1, 2025

Updated to inform users of the potential for a temporary outage of the API Gridded Forecast Data from December 22, 2024 through January 1, 2025.

The Office of Dissemination (DIS) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Central Operations (NCO) continue to work on fixing a critical bug that disrupts the dissemination of gridded forecast data via the NWS Application Programming Interface (API) near the end of the calendar year.  While we still hope to avoid this outage, it is becoming more likely that the outage will occur.  In the event that the bug fix cannot be implemented before December 22, technicians will disable the API gridpoints endpoint and gridded forecast data will not be available between December 22, 2024 through January 1, 2025.  This updated Public Information Statement is intended to inform users of this potential outage and offer alternatives to help reduce the impact to customers.

When this problem occurs, users will experience errors when making requests to the API for gridded forecast data.  Below are examples of the types of requests that will fail:

https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/PQR/107,99/forecast
https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/SGX/59,65/forecast/hourly

The response returned to the user will be similar to this:
{
"correlationId": "eb6a80a", "title": "Service Unavailable", "type": "https://api.weather.gov/problems/ServiceUnavailable", "status": 503, "detail": "An upstream data source is temporarily unavailable.  Please try again later.", "instance": "https://api.weather.gov/requests/eb6a80a"
}

The following alternatives may help users reduce the impact of this data outage.  Using the forecast.weather.gov Web Service:

- The forecast for a location is available via a single call to forecast.weather.gov using the latitude and longitude coordinates for that location:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=$LAT&lon=$LON&FcstType=$FOR MAT

where $LAT and $LON are in decimal degrees and $FORMAT is either DWML or JSON.

Example:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=39.5&lon=94.5&FcstType=dwml

- Using the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) Web Service:

The forecast for a location is available in various formats via requests to web services that deliver NDFD data.  Details on what services are available and how to use them can be found at:

https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/mdl/ndfd

To report problems or operational issues with the API or forecast.weather.gov applications, please contact:

NCEP Central Operations Tech Control:
nco.ops@noaa.gov

To report problems or issues related with the NDFD web services, please contact:
nws.ndfd@noaa.gov

Please send all other comments and questions to:
nws.webfeedback@noaa.gov

National Public Information Statements are online at:

https://www.weather.gov/notification/

NNNN

Didn't we go through this last year too?  They had the entire year to address this but didn't?

[Jasiu / JJ]

Another update. Hopefully this work.

Public Information Statement 24-66 Updated
National Weather Service Headquarters Silver Spring MD
1000 AM EST Wed Dec 4 2024

To: Subscribers:
-NOAA Weather Wire Service
-Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
-NOAAPort
Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees

From: George Jungbluth
Director, Office of Dissemination

Subject: Updated: Potential API Gridded Forecast Data Outage from
December 22, 2024 through January 1, 2025

Updated to inform users of a one-hour live test of the Application
Programming Interface (API) software planned to start at approximately
1230 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Thursday, December 5, 2024.

The Office of Dissemination (DIS) and the National Centers for
Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Central Operations (NCO) continue to work
on fixing a critical bug that disrupts the dissemination of gridded
forecast data via the NWS Application Programming Interface (API) near
the end of the calendar year. The software development team has
engineered a fix that will be tested live for one hour on the morning of
Thursday December 5. Status messages will be posted to
https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/status/messages/ to inform users when the
test begins and ends. During this test, users may experience slightly
different results in forecast information. At the conclusion of the one-
hour test, the previous version of the software will be restored. Users
are asked to report any issues, including any degraded performance, to
NCEP Central Operations Tech Control at nco.ops@noaa.gov.

In the event that this test is not successful and the bug fix cannot be
implemented before December 22, technicians will disable the API
gridpoints endpoint and gridded forecast data will not be available
between December 22, 2024 through January 1, 2025. This updated Public
Information Statement is intended to inform users of this potential
outage and offer alternatives to help reduce the impact to customers.

When this problem occurs, users will experience errors when making
requests to the API for gridded forecast data. Below are examples of the
types of requests that will fail:

https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/PQR/107,99/forecast
https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/SGX/59,65/forecast/hourly

The response returned to the user will be similar to this:
{
"correlationId": "eb6a80a",
"title": "Service Unavailable",
"type": "https://api.weather.gov/problems/ServiceUnavailable",
"status": 503,
"detail": "An upstream data source is temporarily unavailable.
Please try again later.",
"instance": "https://api.weather.gov/requests/eb6a80a"
}

The following alternatives may help users reduce the impact of this data
outage. Using the forecast.weather.gov Web Service:

The forecast for a location is available via a single call to
forecast.weather.gov using the latitude and longitude coordinates for
that location:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=$LAT&lon=$LON&FcstType=$FORMAT

where $LAT and $LON are in decimal degrees and $FORMAT is either DWML or
JSON.

Example:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=39.5&lon=-94.5&FcstType=dwml

Using the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) Web Service:

The forecast for a location is available in various formats via requests
to web services that deliver NDFD data. Details on what services are
available and how to use them can be found at:

https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/mdl/ndfd

To report problems or operational issues with the API or
forecast.weather.gov applications, please contact:
NCEP Central Operations Tech Control
nco.ops@noaa.gov
To report problems or issues related with the NDFD web services, please
contact:
nws.ndfd@noaa.gov

Please send all other comments and questions to:
nws.webfeedback@noaa.gov

National Public Information Statements are online at:

https://www.weather.gov/notification/

[Jasiu / JJ]

Some good news (from email thread for the bug):

2024-12-06 14:42:36 EST - Leonardo DaSilvaAdditional comments
Update received from the on-boarding team (Joshua ):

The code was successfully tested in operations yesterday. Only 1 500 error was seen during the hour test where the previous hour was several order of magnitudes greater. Full code release has been scheduled for 12/12 at 15Z.

(LRS)

Hopefully this means no outage and many fewer errors from here on out.

[Jasiu / JJ]

Fix to be deployed this week.

The Office of Dissemination (DIS) and the National Centers for
Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Central Operations (NCO) have finished
fixing a critical bug that had previously disrupted the dissemination
of gridded forecast data via the NWS Application Programming Interface
(API) near the end of calendar year 2023. This updated Public
Information Statement is to inform users that the fix for this bug
will be installed on or about December 12, 2024 and users should not
expect to experience the end of year outage.