The NOAA servers providing the data all appear to have gone missing. I can’t even access the front pages where there’s often an explanation of the outage.
Apparently there are power problems with two out of the three servers that provide GFS data. I suspect that the third server is so overloaded that my scripts aren’t able to extract anything from it.
That looks a little ominous…the notice from NOAA says that the two servers off for power reasons are off ‘indefinitely’. I hope that just means that they don’t know how quickly they’ll be able to get them sorted out and back on again.
Didn’t access them with your rogue PC did you?
That must be it. My PC sucked all the power out of their servers causing them to shut down forever and in the process overloaded my PC resulting in a melted case 8O
Yikes! I also hope “indefinitely” just means “until it’s fixed”!
Meanwhile, I think everybody should consider using READY data (which may be new to some of you), partly as a bridge until this problem is resolved, but also because these things seem prone to happen from time to time.
You could keep decent forecasts going, even in automated mode, by downloading READY data at least once a day and having WXSIMATE append it to your other data. It takes a bit of effort to learn what to get and how to get it, but once you know what you’re doing, it’s only a couple of minutes, and it’s what WXSIM users did routinely for the last several years, before Chris VERY kindly offered this GFS data last November. 
There’s information in the manual about how to do this, but I can also answer questions about it on this forum.
Hope that helps!
Tom
Tom I had missed this and did not realise that WXSim in auto mode does not stop if the GFS/READY data is more than 24 hours old. So for a few days now I’ve been reating forecasts which are not very good! I had expected WXSim to stop under these conditions.
Stuart
Hi,
That’s really a big problem. I was wondering what’s wrong with the forecasts until I read this post about
the NOAA servers failure concerning GFS data! I have stopped publishing forecasts on my page and I’m trying to
get READY data. It’s a bit tricky to find it out by myself because I’ve never done this before. Does anyone have any
instructions about how to do this? :?
Thanks,
Thanos
More Yikes… 8O 8O 8O .more agghhhs…mmmm…READY DATA…almost in the “easier said than done category”…
From the manual: Quote…NOAA’s READY site (http://www.arl.noaa.gov/ready/cmet.html) has a wide variety of graphical and text products, including output from several models. This meteogram text data available here can be downloaded for import and placement on the Interrupt Planner. Unquote
and: quote: Finally, I may get on the READY site and do the following:
Go to the URL given above. Find 'Forecast Model Graphics
See this item for a link to my AutoIT script which aids in downloading READY data in a semi-automated way. It needs the AutoIT package to be installed as well.
Stuart
Thanks Stuart…I new that I had seen something recently along that theme, but hadn’t re-found it …Now I know…Now to give it a try
Thanks to everybody for the tips!
I manually downloaded READY data as munrobaggins described successfully , but Stuart, I can’t run your script!
I installed AutoIt3, downloaded and edited the script according to my needs, but all I get is a notepad window and
nothing else… (no IE etc.) I wonder if there is somethin missing! :?
Is there anything else to configure in autoit3, or just run the script?
Thanks again!
Thanos
I did the same with autoit…with exactly the same results…I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Most strange…could you help us Stuart?
I’ve never tried the script. I think you’d still have to type in the password (as the owners of the READY site wish).
If the GFS isn’t up when I get home from work today, I’ll try to put together some concise, simple READY-gathering instructions and post them.
Tom
That’s correct Tom, but in this case (script), we don’t even have an IE window opened to get to the READY site! The script
just opens an empty window(notepad) for the readydat.txt file and that’s all, it pauses there!
Stuart, who has run the script, will give us a solution!
Thanos
Thanos,
I don’t know if this is the problem or not, but make sure you have Internet Explorer installed and that it’s working ok. Otherwise I’m sure Stuart will have the answer. - Jim
OK, I’m confused. Is the GFS data not working at all or is some of it working. I haven’t had the data greater than 24 hours old error and the auto forecasts have been and are close to NWS for today through Sunday.
–Dave
This script calls two other scripts:
#include <IE.au3>
#include <Misc.au3>
are those on your PC and are they in the same directory, or somewhere this script can find them?
Hi Jim,
IE7 is installed and working properly. I use Firefox mostly, but I have made IE the default browser just in case.
Is IE7 compatible with the script? Maybe that’s the point.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep downloading READY data manually until NOAA fix the problem with the GFS servers. We are in front
of a major weather change in Greece for the next few days and this will be a “crash test” for WXSIM. It’s a pity that NOAA
servers are down now! 
Niko, the two scripts exist into a the INCLUDE directory of AutoIt3.
Thanos
That would be groovy, Tom. I tried a little bit last night to get READY data, and am going to try again today.
Thanks!