Reference · built on requestCommons signalWeather & climate

SPC GIS Products

Convective and fire weather outlooks, active watches and mesoscale discussions from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center as GIS files.

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About

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma is the National Weather Service office that forecasts severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and fire weather for the contiguous United States. Its GIS page publishes the Day 1, 2 and 3 Convective Outlooks, the Day 4-8 Severe Weather Outlook, the Day 1-2 and Day 3-8 Fire Weather Outlooks, active watch parallelograms and active mesoscale discussions as zipped shapefiles, KML/KMZ and GeoJSON.

Through Fibric, an operator polls the product directories on the outlook schedule, intersects your sites, routes and shipments with the risk polygons, and proposes a hold, a notice or a reserve for a person to approve.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from SPC GIS Products and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • Day 1, 2 and 3 Convective Outlooks with categorical risk (Marginal, Slight, Enhanced, Moderate, High) and probabilistic tornado, wind and hail areas under /products/outlook/
  • Day 4-8 Severe Weather Outlook areas at 15 and 30 percent probability under /products/exper/day4-8/
  • Day 1-2 Fire Weather Outlooks (Critical and Extreme areas, a lower DN 5 tier, dry thunderstorm areas) under /products/fire_wx/; Day 3-8 under /products/exper/fire_wx/
  • Active watch parallelograms under /products/watch/ and active mesoscale discussions under /products/md/
  • Layered and non-layered GeoJSON for the Day 1-8 convective outlooks, alongside zipped shapefiles and KML/KMZ
  • The same outlooks and local storm reports as ArcGIS MapServer layers on mapservices.weather.noaa.gov

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Hold outbound freight under a Moderate or High Risk

    Intersect the Day 1 categorical outlook with the day's shipment lanes and propose a hold on loads that would move through a Moderate or High Risk polygon.

    With Weather Hold

  • Tell sites inside an active watch

    When a watch parallelogram covers a site, draft a notice with the watch's valid period for a manager to send.

    With Severe Weather Notice

  • Suspend hot work on a Critical fire weather day

    Read the Day 1 Fire Weather Outlook and propose that permits inside a Critical or Extreme area wait until the outlook clears.

    With Hot Work Permit

  • Stage backup power before a Moderate Risk day

    Use the Day 2 and Day 3 outlooks to propose generator checks and fuel top-ups at sites in the risk area.

    With Storm Reserve

Requirements

  • A list of your sites, routes or shipment lanes as coordinates to intersect with the outlook polygons
  • A poller keyed to the issuance schedule, since the directories carry files and no change notification
  • A map from the shapefile DN codes to risk names (for categorical outlooks, 2 is Thunderstorm through 8 is High Risk)
Authentication
None. The files are public downloads from spc.noaa.gov; no account, key or registration is documented.

Limits

  • Coverage is the contiguous United States; watches are drawn by county
  • Watches and mesoscale discussions have no fixed schedule; they appear when conditions warrant
  • The Day 3-8 fire weather and Day 4-8 convective files sit under an experimental products path
  • NWS provides the information as is and disclaims all warranties

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

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Questions and answers

What file formats does SPC publish?
Zipped shapefiles, KML and KMZ, and GeoJSON. Since October 16, 2019 the Day 1-8 convective outlooks come as layered (wedding cake) and non-layered (donut hole) GeoJSON files. Since January 30, 2020 the Day 2 outlook carries individual tornado, wind and hail probabilities.
How often is the Day 1 Convective Outlook issued?
Five times a day, at 0600Z, 1300Z, 1630Z, 2000Z and 0100Z. Day 2 is issued at 1:00 am Central and 1730Z, Day 3 at 2:30 am Central and 1930Z, and the Day 4-8 outlook at 4:00 am Central.
Do I need a key or a license?
No. NWS web information is in the public domain unless noted and may be used without charge for any lawful purpose. You may not claim it as your own, imply NOAA or NWS endorsement, or use the NWS name and mark without permission.
Ask about SPC GIS Products

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by NOAA Storm Prediction Center (spc.noaa.gov). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy