Leuven Template discontinues support for NOAA/NWS/USA scripts

March 7 the NWS URL’s used for getting a NWS forecast will change => advforecast2-json.php beta test...

Could someone explain to me what is wrong with simply converting these URL to https?
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=41.3&lon=-72.78&FcstType=dwml
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=41.3&lon=-72.78&FcstType=json

Or why I can not use this URL after March 7: National Weather Service (NWS) National Digital Foreast Database (NDFD) Data Summarized By Period and encoded in Digital Weather Markup Language (DWML)

Even 5 days before the switch to new URL’s / API’s there is no consistent documentation about the HOW and WHAT the new situation would be.
No other forecast supplier as I am aware of, makes these changes without ample time for the script writers to adapt the scripts and running extensive beta test programs.

With “pain in the heart” I have to stop accepting new USA users for 1. my Leuven-Template and 2. for the stand-alone USA scripts (noaa).
Too often and too many changes in the URL’s / API’s take up too much time.

Current USA users will, after March 7, probably loose the NOAA/NWS forecasts but can still use YRNO or METNO forecasts which will give them ample time to switch to another template.

As from today March 2 2017 the Leuven-Template will be available for new European users only.

Wim

Most unfortunate but understandable :frowning:

Well double turkey crap, does that mean that my template no longer will work? or is that limited to only the noaa forecast, which I can change to something else pronto.

And who has templates that take the feed off of Weatherlink IP?

Hi,
only pages using NOAA/NWS forecast will be affected, your template will otherwise work fine, all that Wim means is I think that he will no longer be offering the US version of his template to NEW users. Existing users can of course keep on using it, just that he probably does not plan on updating the NWS/NOAA scripts so you might have to disable those.

Thankyou. Wim helped out getting the data that my Weatherlink IP on to his template. I have it that way because if I try to run much on this imac, it either speeds up the fan or eats resources. Much, Much different than using a PC. Resources are allocated differently and it sometimes is irritating. But using the IP I can get my data on there, use Weatherdisplay here when I need it along with Weathercat.

I changed the forecast on the template to WeatherUnderground and hopefully their feed will work. if Not, I will go to the other choices.

I was concerned that I would need to explore a different template that would work.

I think Wim has blank page examples so you could probably run Ken’s standalone forecast script.

Note that Ken first posted info about the NWS forecast changes on 13 Dec 2016 - http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=30955.0 - and has been working very hard to keep up with what NWS is doing. It’s been a tough road, and some of their servers were down today, but within the past few minutes have come back up.

Point? Info about these changes has been around since early Dec.

My forecast server is still down (yes, I did “force” it) :frowning:

niko, my forecasts just came back to life a few minutes ago.

I’m sure they are working on it.

I know these changes have been in the works for a while, but I do take Wim’s point seriously. .gov has made an awful lot of changes over the last year or so.

Yes, but… it was more an info “things will change”, but no clear indication of how exactly will the data look in the future.

it would be much better if they simply ran the new site parallel to the original and have it like that for a few weeks/months so that we could create the new scripts, test them and release them without some temporary period of no functional script.

Other thing is that regardless of whether you know about it or not, it is still a lot of time and work to do this and it happens quite often with NWS/NOAA so Im not that surprised Wim simply doesnt have time for this.

Agreed - it’s been a mess.

My comment was not meant to be a rag, but was directed at his, “No other forecast supplier as I am aware of, makes these changes without ample time for the script writers to adapt the scripts and running extensive beta test programs.” I was simply stating the info has been out there.

True.

I think he maybe meant exactly what I said in the previous post, they should run both in parallel for some time with a big note on the old one that it will be discontinued soon.

Not saying - this will stop working and the new version will be available the moment the old one stops working

Unfortunately when dealing with big, distributed systems that’s often just not possible. You might have a test server but to replicate the whole system isn’t feasible, to say nothing of the additional programming effort to build whatever temporary data sharing interfaces might be needed. I’ve been through this a number of times. When you have a system with thousands of users, servicing many thousand clients each day, you can do your best to test the system and train the users but ultimately you just have to switch the live environment.

New Beta version today… handle the point-forecast 503 with a zone forecast load. That behavior by the api.weather.gov was never documented… just uncovered today as the forecast-v3.weather.gov site shows a notice

Zone Data Notice

Current weather data was not available for the location you requested.

The zone data will be displayed until your location has been refreshed.


advforecast-json.php.txt (86.5 KB)

NOAA usually use pararell data at least for their GRIB-datas before they put changes in production.
But i agree with Vim, its a pain in the *** to use forecast API’s. I have used multiple European met institute’s API’s and they actually do the same, like “we will change this to that today”, if they even send any info about it. Eh, thanks. In some cases one only note when the script are broken. No betas, no pararell data, nothing. Only exception have been YRNO and their XML-datas what have stayed intact for long time.

I dare to say 90% of blocks/plugins that I updated because of changes in the source were NWS/NOAA…

I understand that NWS wants to implement improvements, but all at once?
One example only: Why change the naming of nearly all icons?
And if there is a list of the new/improved icons ands their meanings, I did not locate it.
Not very important to most stand-alone users, but in all of my scripts the website-owner can either use the different forecast icons (WU,NOAA, YRNO)
or standardise all forecasts to ones own set of website wide icons.
To implement that I need a complete list of all possible icons to adapt the translate-table “noaa icons” => “default icons”.

Status of Leuven NOAA scripts:
Plain page => working, but no including “hazards” numerous 503 or 404 errors with [s]https://api.weather.gov/alerts/active?point=30.0693,-93.6716[/s]
Extensive page: Working as long as there is no change in the forecast URL: National Weather Service (NWS) National Digital Foreast Database (NDFD) Data Summarized By Period and encoded in Digital Weather Markup Language (DWML)

For those willing to beta-test, [s]the stand-alone version of the current beta-scripts can be downloaded from http://leuven-template.eu/noaafct3.zip.
The readme is not yet ready, but visit the previous version demo-page for explanations at http://www.weerstation-leuven.be/northam/noaafct/demo.php?plain&lang=en[/s]

Go to http://www.weerstation-leuven.be/northam/noaafct/demo.php?full&lang=en
All demo’s are adapted to latest version and download available at tab => “Install” link =>“Here”

Wim

New versions available for stand-alone and Saratoga users.
Go to http://www.weerstation-leuven.be/northam/noaafct/demo.php?full&lang=en
All demo’s are adapted to latest version and download available at tab => “Install” link =>“Here”

Leuven-template users will have to wait until icon conversions are adapted also.
Wim