RSS Advsory - No Red Flag Warning?

[ThorntonWeather]

I recently implemented the two rss advisory scripts and they have been working well.  This evening though we are under a Red Flag Warning (http://www.weather.gov/alerts/co.html#COZ240.BOURFWBOU.222300) and they are not showing on my site.  Are they supposed to?  I figured I would ask so I know if I have a problem or not.   

Thanks!

   T

[saratogaWX]

The feed from NOAA http://www.weather.gov/alerts/wwarssget.php?zone=COZ240


is showing a Red Flag Warning

as does the rss-advisory.php script ( http://saratoga-weather.org/rss-advisory.php?zone=COZ240 )

The rss-top-warning.php script is also showing it ( http://saratoga-weather.org/rss-top-warning.php?zone=COZ240 )

Generally, Watches, Warnings and Advisories are included in the weather.gov RSS feed.  Hazardous Weather Outlooks aren't.

Best regards,
Ken

[ThorntonWeather]

Ken,

Hmmm.  Any idea then why all I am seeing is the Short Term Forecast (http://www.thorntonweather.com/wx4.php)? 

It is really bizarre.  If I access it via your site, I see the Red Flag Warning.  If I do it via mine (http://www.thorntonweather.com/rss-advisory.php?zone=COZ040) I see the Short Term Forecast. 

Do I perhaps have a setting wrong that I am missing?

As always, thank you for the quick reply!!!

   Tony

[ThorntonWeather]

An addendum...  Ken, I see you used COZ240.  I used COZ040.  Note the 2 versus 0.  Should I be set to COZ240?  I have always used 040.

I also notice if I use http://www.thorntonweather.com/rss-advisory.php?zone=COZ240 I get a message saying, "Advisory Information Unavailable, error reading cache file saved from the NOAA advisories server."

    T

[saratogaWX]

Tony,
The URL you cited with the warning in the first post:

http://www.weather.gov/alerts/co.html#COZ240.BOURFWBOU.222300

has 'COZ240' as the zone .  If you find your location on www.weather.gov and mouse over the warnings in red, you'll see the zone you should probably use for your location.

Looking at the forecast for 'Thornton, CO', I find three current messages:


Hazardous Weather Outlook
Red Flag Warning
Short Term Forecast

Each of the URLs shows one zone for your locale (COZ040) and a different one for your Firewarning (COZ240)

The RSS feed for COZ040 only includes the Short Term Forecast (Hazardous Weather Outlooks aren't included in the RSS feeds).
The RSS feed for COZ240 only includes the Red Flag Warning.

It looks like you should use COZ040 for your primary zone.  I don't know why the NWS has separate zones for your location, but they don't offer a 'combined' feed that would replicate what appears on the www.weather.gov page for your area.

Best regards,
Ken

[ThorntonWeather]

Well leave it to me to be a special case.      COZ040 is the one I use - really odd that the fire warning is listed in a different one.  I may drop the local NWS an email and ask them.

Thanks for looking at that, Ken! 

   Tony

[ThorntonWeather]

Just thought I would post a follow-up to this...  I finally got around to emailing the local NWS office and this is what they said:

Red Flag warnings only pertain to fire weather zones and not to regular public zones.  The people who deal with fire weather use the fire weather zones and the public deal with the regular zones.  These zone differences are created by design and request.
WFO Denver/Boulder Webmaster

Makes no sense to me.  I did some checking and Arizona seems to do the same thing but only those two states as near as I can tell.  Really odd.  I guess I can understand having a separate fire zone but why those fire zone warnings don't feed into the main zone makes no sense to me. 

   Tony