Using Real-Time Data Notification Services for Decision Support Systems

As part of the National Mesonet Program of the National Weather Service, SynopticLabs/MesoWest provides access to weather observations from over 30,000 locations that are made available by hundreds of data providers (https://synopticlabs.org). The increased demand for low latency, high quality data has never been greater. Critical operational and decision support systems, both autonomous and interactive, need quality real-time surface weather observations to alert and protect stakeholders. The SynopticLabs data API services provide the foundation for achieving these technical goals, with the notification services built directly into the ingest and quality control sub-systems. Data and messages are pushed via websockets, SMS messaging or email.

Users can create search criteria for specific conditions and receive observations or custom messages when matches are found. Performing data checks and quality control on real-time data are integrated into this service. Preventing false matches from flowing through a notification system is challenging; we use a combination of basic range and rate change data checks against all observations, as well as more advanced climatological and spatial tests for key weather variables. Applying a combination of these tests can be built into each notification search criteria. These criteria, or data filters, include specifying region or domain and combinations of weather variables with specific thresholds for each variable. Once triggered, users can be notified when the event is over or if the event continues to persist for the time period provided. Examples of use cases will be provided including fire weather monitoring, micro-scale events such as convective outflows that affect public safety, and hobbyist activities.