Inquiry on data sources

[qaiik]

Hey, Sorry to create an issue, but I didn't know how else to contact you.

I was wondering where you got your county and forecast zone .js.gz files for rendering alerts
I got the counties figured out, but its slow, and something like thats exactly what I needed.

I don't know if you'd be upset if I used these files, so I was wondering where you got them or the JSON within them.

Thanks

[SteepAtticStairs]

I personally wouldn't recommend using the files for now, I plan to change them soon because they're too large at the moment.

The way I did it was I downloaded ALL of the zones from api.weather.gov (it was a lot of data), combined them into one geojson, then I simplified it on mapshaper.org to reduce the size, then I put it in a JS object and compressed it. I found that pre-downloading and processing the zones data rather than getting it on-the-fly from the NWS every time is much better.

Check their API specification, I wrote a script that used /zones/forecast, /zones/county, and /zones/fire. It downloaded all the zones and their geometries individually before being combined and processed as described above.

[qaiik]

Thanks for the response,
That's smart, I thought about that but thought it would be so infeasible and time consuming to not hit ratelimits and I didnt bother.
If you're okay with a few mb, you can split keys by two letter prefix (eg ak, an, ky) which makes fetching much faster because youre only using what you need, although it requires folders and a total of ~150 files. You can also simplify each key if you don't need a lot other info than like name and state.

[SteepAtticStairs]

That's actually a good idea. Right now, the libraries are around 6 mb total. I don't think this is a massive issue, 6 mb isn't crazy, it's basically equivalent to a couple radar scans & storm tracks, and it only loads once. In my rewrite that I'm working on, the libraries download in the background while the main alerts show, so it doesn't block anything. I'll also implement caching because these libraries don't change much.

[Todd812]

I have a feed that can send all alert types via socket. I also have a socket that after initial download it sends a delete list and any new geometries that are present in the data based on URN. You can then delete the alerts from the map that are no longer in effect. I already have geometries for all NWS alert types with geometries. After initial download the socket sends very meager amounts of data and only requires me to download alert data if any new alerts are issued on my end sending the user the data myself rather than in the app via NWS. This allows for lots of customization. I also have a socket for the latest weather reports. If you are interested I would be willing to share if it's something you think would benefit the app. Just contact me.

[Todd812]

You can generate the mesoscale coordinates and WPC mesoscale discussions from the XML feed really easily using the coordinates the NWS gives inside the discussions feed and generate the JSON that is needed to plot them. Then you can really dial back on the amount of polling needed and proxy needed to get the feed information. I already have a working example of this and can send the code if it's something you would be interested in. Message me if you think you could use this.