How can I access weather alerts in real time? Is there a webhook?

[john01dav]

When I look into using the API, I see that I can poll for weather warnings and other alerts (tornado warnings are the most relevant to my use case), but I do not see any way to immediately be notified when such a warning is issued. Is there a webhook or similar that I can use? For some warnings, like tornado warnings, the few minute delay from polling is a real problem.

[wsamoht]

As far as I've seen, there are no webhooks (a "push" of data). I have seen other weather services offer this as a feature. But, my guess is that they also pull from the NWS so you'll probably still looking at some sort of delay.

[dwhitemv25]

A push alerts service would be really nice to have.

NWS has a "push" service in NWS Weather Wire, a stream of text products and CAP-formatted alerts. NWWS is transmitted either via satellite or via NWWS-OI, an XMPP chatroom. The delay on NWWS-OI is very short, text products are almost real time and CAP alert versions lag by a few seconds. There isn't much software out there to use NWWS-OI-- there's a basic python daemon and some commercial software--and it requires customization for whatever you want to do with the products. Not a product for beginners, but probably your best source if you wanted to develop a web push service.

[tmabell]

I am a bit surprised at this point that no one has suggested the EMWIN data stream. It is free and there is inexpensive software available that is designed to make use of both the NWS Weather Wire and EMWIN.

[dwhitemv25]

I ran the Internet EMWIN stream first before signing up for NWWS-OI. Simply put, it had reliability problems. The file generation would routinely fail and spit out empty archives, and it would take hours to restore the stream after I filed the outage ticket. I got the sense that NCO didn't consider keeping it running a priority. It also requires polling for file updates, which I am not a fan of (you spend time checking it even if there is no data).

By comparison reliability on NWWS-OI has been excellent and issues are usually quickly caught and fixed.

[tmabell]

The NWS no longer provides the push EMWIN data stream. It was discontinued a few years ago but last year a private group took over and has been running it very well since. The kind of issues you had are all in the past. Might be worth another look!