To retrieve data from our network, you will need to know both the product code and the station identifier of the office issuing the product.
Several years ago, before budget cutbacks and consolidation efforts by the federal government, there were many more offices of the NWS than we have today. In most cases, many offices in each state shared responsibility for issuing products such as State Forecast Packages, Zone Forecast Packages, Winter Storm Warnings and more. Now, however, the actual number of NWS offices continues to be reduced, and fewer and fewer offices handle authorship responsibilities for what is basically the same number of products. Therefore, it is important to be aware of the primary forecast office in your area in order to know where to look on our network to obtain data.
The effects of consolidating offices can been seen most clearly in the State Zone Forecast packages. For example, the Washington, DC office issues state zone forecasts for all of Maryland and Virginia, as well as for eastern counties of West Virginia. In addition, the Salt Lake City office issues forecasts for all zones in Utah, extreme southern Idaho and extreme southwestern Wyoming. This is important to remember when looking for text products off our network -- depending on where you live, the forecast office that covers your area may be in an adjacent state.
Currently, text products can be retrieved from our network by entering the product code followed by a space, then the office station identifier. For example:
ABC ZZZ
where "ABC" is the product code and "ZZZ" is the three-letter station identifier for the office that issues that product. The product code is usually a combination of three letters, but may be longer. There are a few products where only one office issues that product for the entire country.
When using this feature, here are a few items to remember:
Examples:
ZFP DEN requests the State Zone Forecast Package from Denver, Colorado
TOR JAX requests the Tornado Warning from Jacksonville, Florida
STP SEA requests the State Temperature & Precipitation Summary from Seattle, for Washington state.
The WeatherBrief data base contains weather reports from nearly 3,000 locations from around the world. The HOURLY command uses the 3-letter station (airport) codes and also the 4-character ICAO codes for INTERNATIONAL weather reports. Weather reports may be obtained for an entire state by typing an "*" followed by the 2-letter state abbreviation.
The HOURLY command is:
...where: " h " is the Hourly Command, and " abc " is the station code for the location desired. As an example, you may selectively ask for one station at a time, by:
... requests the weather report from Denver, CO
... requests the weather report from San Francisco, CA
... requests the weather reports from Omaha, NE, St. Louis, MO and Central Park, NY
...requests the weather reports London, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, UAE and Moscow
A number of qualifying options are also allowed, for example:
You may also indicate a time period with this command structure:
This command structure is used to obtain all weather reports from Rapid City, SD, from 12 AM today and later, and looks like this:
More examples of this format include:
...requests all weather reports from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from midnight the day before, and later (up to 5-days, each "y" placed in the command string requests data "back one day"; "yy" requests data from two days ago; "yyy" requests data from three days ago; and so forth.
Other helpful hints include:
...requests all weather station location codes for the state of Florida.
... requests the weather report from Denver, CO, the sky cover category changed to a weather category and decoded into plain text.
...requests the weather report for North Dakota, presented in CDT Time Zone (others include MDT, PDT, EDT, ADT or CST, MST, PST, EST and AST).
Commands may also "filter" for select weather items, such as temperatures over 90°F, wind speeds greater than 70 miles per hour, wind chill temperatures below -50°F; according to the following filters:
Here are a few examples requesting filtered data:
...requests all weather reports from Washington state with a temperature less than 40°F.
...requests all weather reports from Washington state with a temperature less than 40°F in PDT time zone.
...(PDT, MDT, CDT, EDT, ADT are available; PST, MST, CST, EST, AST are also available, but when used, all
...display observations will remain in Standard Time year round)
...requests weather reports from midnight yesterday for Redding, CA, in Metar format (" /m ").
...requests all weather reports from Washington state with a temperature less than 40°F.
...requests all weather reports from North Dakota state with a wind chill temperature less than 0°F.
...requests all weather reports from Oklahoma state with a wind speed or gust greater than 65 mph.
...requests all weather reports from Oklahoma state with the wind direction in degrees.
Display formats available are /f1 through /f6, such as:
/f1 . . . sky cover is listed as CLR, BKR, OVC; pressure in INCHES
/f2 . . . sky cover is listed as PLAIN TEXT; pressure in INCHES /f3 . . . sky cover is listed as PLAIN TEXT; pressure in MILLIBARS /f4 . . . sky cover is PLAIN TEXT; pressure in MILLIBARS; and HI/LO, PRECIP Hourly, PRECIP Daily /f5 . . . sky cover is listed as CLR, BKR, OVC; pressure in MILLIBARS /f6 . . . sky cover is listed as PLAIN TEXT; pressure in MILLIBARS; Observation time shows HRS and MINS /m . . . provides in observation in METAR (raw) format /f8 . . . provides each observations "remarks" and additional comments, such as high, low, max gust etc.Things to keep in mind:
1. All station names are spelled out, up to 16 characters
If questions or comments remain, please contact Customer Service via e-mail, or by calling (405) 359-0773, Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM.