Weather

This site is being migrated from my previous wiki at http://ke3vin.org/pmwiki.php/Main/Weather

Skywarn

I am a trained Skywarn spotter. See What is Skywarn for more information.

Here is a script I use to alert me on days that spotter activation may be required based on the NWS HWO product for my forecast office (WFO or WSFO).

The HWO or Hazardous Weather Outlook is created daily by your local forecast office. In it is always a mention of Skywarn Spotter activation.

Even if you are not a trained spotter it is still good to know the outlook of the area where you will be that day. I travel fairly enough and visit relatives across several geographical areas. I can modify my script on a given day to include additional forecasts by the local WFO when I am traveling. Or I can put in the URL below (modify the "issuedby=" in the URL) and change the WFO or simply visit the top site at http://www.weather.gov/ and put in the zip code or city name for your current location and click down to Hazardous Weather.

Since I spend 90% of my time in Deltona, FL and 10% in Greeneville, TN (I own property in each) I monitor both offices statements.

The two offices I monitor are Melbourne, FL coded as "MLB" at http://www.weather.gov/mlb/ and Morristown, TN coded as "MRX" at http://www.weather.gov/mrx/.

The text only HWO for MLB is at http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=MLB&product=HWO&format=txt&version=1&glossary=0.

The text only HWO for MRX is at http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=MRX&product=HWO&format=txt&version=1&glossary=0

Notice the "issuedby=" in the URL. That is where you would put in the code for your local forecast office. Forecast offices nearest you and their codes can be found at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/nws/wfos.html.

The output of the script is sent to via email daily at 7:30am via cron (in Linux)

30 7 * * *  /home/kinscoe/bin/nws_spotter_activation.sh | mailx -s "Daily Hazardous Weather Outlook" -r kevin@inscoe.org kevin@inscoe.org 2>&1

This script runs in Linux Bash shell (https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/) however it can also run in Mac (which already has Bash installed) or Windows using the Cygwin install. For Cygwin see https://www.cygwin.com/. For the Mac (and Linux as well if you do have these dependencies installed) the script should work fine but you will also need to install curl and html2text. Curl is likely already installed on both Mac and Linux by default. It has been on the Mac since 10.8 I believe. For Linux consult your distribution for the proper way to install Curl or visit the source code download at https://curl.haxx.se/. html2text may be slightly harder to obtain. You can visit the source code page at http://www.mbayer.de/html2text/. In Mac you can obtain a port using Macports or Homebrew. I recommend Homebrew. In Homebrew I used the command

brew install html2text

The Bash shell script:

#/bin/bash

for WFO in MLB MRX
do
   echo "HWO statement for $WFO..."
   echo " "
   URL="http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=`echo $WFO`&product=HWO&format=txt&version=1&glossary=0"
   curl -s "$URL" | html2text | grep -i -A 1 "Spotter activation"
   echo " "
   echo "For full outlook click on $URL"
   echo " "
done

The output which I will see in email:

HWO statement for MLB...
 
Spotter activation will not be needed today.

 
For full outlook click on http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=MLB&product=HWO&format=txt&version=1&glossary=0
 
HWO statement for MRX...
 
Spotter activation will be needed Friday night into early
Saturday morning.
 
For full outlook click on http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=MRX&product=HWO&format=txt&version=1&glossary=0
 

This could also be sent to Twitter or other such alerting media.