20Z DAY ONE

[Ben Holcomb]

I promise it's not my fault!

If it makes you feel any better, we had a fire alarm a little after the NWC lost power. See JR's facebook for my hee-man picture in front of the fire truck.

 

[Tim Shriver]

yep power outage. i was reading the sioux falls afd, and it mentions the power outage at the spc. no updated outlook, the latest mesoscale discussion is still up from 3.5 hours ago, and the forecast tools are still using the 18Z run of the RUC!! wonder what caused it? maybe it was those damn squirrels again that caused a power outage up here in the omaha area recently!!

You would think they would have UPS units and backup generators.

Tim

 

[Tim Shriver]

Doing quartly backup power testing seems to be a good idea.

We do partial tests montly and full on tests quarterly
to make sure the systems can handle it.



Tim

 

[Tim Shriver]

MCD issued for WI didnt make it out over EMWIN or WeatherWire.
Their website is having issues as well....MCD shows graphic but
no text.

FYI...

Tim

 

[Patrick Marsh]

You would think they would have UPS units and backup generators.

Tim

We do have these things, as I mentioned in my earlier posts.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Doing quartly backup power testing seems to be a good idea.

We do partial tests montly and full on tests quarterly
to make sure the systems can handle it.



Tim

We do have regular tests.

I can't go into specifics of what happened yesterday per security directives. Suffice to say that for the most part, every system acted the way it was supposed to and it's a miracle more things were damaged. Based on this, you should have an idea of the magnitude of what happened.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

MCD issued for WI didnt make it out over EMWIN or WeatherWire.
Their website is having issues as well....MCD shows graphic but
no text.

FYI...

Tim

Things hit the webpage and transmit across EMWIN at different times. At least in terms of the website, you must have checked before the text had posted as it is there now.

Remember, when you go to http://www.spc.noaa.gov you are actually then routed to one of several severs located throughout the country. Things don't update instantaneously across all severs; it takes some time to populate everything, everywhere.

 

[Tim Shriver]

Yep, power outages are no fun. Our site had
bad grounding issues for about two years.
A nice lightening strike made that real apparent.

I was in contact with KMKX and they verified the missing MCD.
The SPC then resubmitted it and it came through fine.

Good group of folks...

Tim

 

[Jason Foster]

MCD issued for WI didnt make it out over EMWIN or WeatherWire.
Their website is having issues as well....MCD shows graphic but
no text.

FYI...

Tim

Like Patrick indicated, and also adding by personal observation....I've seen many graphics issued before text products.

I think after the many, many, many (did I say many) years of on time or 'early' discussions being issued, this outage is a pretty damn good record. I know no one is really complaining, just saying I have thought out it, and it is an impressive record for on-time performance from a government agency.

 

[Tim Shriver]

We do have these things, as I mentioned in my earlier posts.

Pat said "We have backup power, but the backup systems become unstable."

You did not mention what kind of "backup systems" you had.

Many places plunk down a generator and call it a backup system.
Many do not have a UPS system to do the work until the generators
kick in. This can cause issues, damaged systems and an unstable system.

That why I ask or said what I said.

Tim

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Pat said "We have backup power, but the backup systems become unstable."

You did not mention what kind of "backup systems" you had.

Many places plunk down a generator and call it a backup system.
Many do not have a UPS system to do the work until the generators
kick in. This can cause issues, damaged systems and an unstable system.

That why I ask or said what I said.

Tim

We have multiple incoming power sources, UPS, generators, etc. Federal security directives prevent me from elaborating more.

 

[Jayson Prentice]

Good idea as I do DR testing and installations in the financial
data world.

Our data center here has a 99.9 percent up
time over the past 10 years. Not bad.

If we are down your credit card might not work
or that Federal Reserve transfer may not happen on time.
So we make sure it does.

But love the smart a** remark Ben...

Tim

I think if you were to look back on the SPC record and their downtime you would likely find that they also have an up-time of 99.9% as well. It isn't very often that you'll see them have problems, and even when they do the products that need to get out still do. You might have to go without precious little graphics and mesoanalysis for a few hours but you'll get the information you need (watches, discussion, etc...)

 

[Jason Bolt]

Besides, is it really a bad thing to use the OWS backup from time to time? It keeps OWS and SPC sharp on the transition process.

 

[Tim Shriver]

We have multiple incoming power sources, UPS, generators, etc. Federal security directives prevent me from elaborating more.

As they say, even the best laid plains can go awry...

Tim

 

[Tim Shriver]

I think if you were to look back on the SPC record and their downtime you would likely find that they also have an up-time of 99.9% as well. It isn't very often that you'll see them have problems, and even when they do the products that need to get out still do. You might have to go without precious little graphics and mesoanalysis for a few hours but you'll get the information you need (watches, discussion, etc...)

I have no doubt they have a good uptime record. But will the coffee machine be able to take the strain?

Tim