Massive Technology Failure?

Dave Lewison said:
Relying on your gear to keep you safe instead of your eyes, brain & experience is just plain stupidity. Have to agree with Jay that this kind of issue is only going to get worse. Makes me kind of glad I was learning to chase back when in-car radar was only a fantasy. I can fall back on that when the cell towers get overloaded. Won't make me any less pissed off about it though. :)
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more!

When you consider that the images on radar are not "real time" and indeed
you are looking at the past, I would bet they would of run into the tornado
with or without updated radar data.:(

With the new laws against having a laptop operating within view
of the driver folks are just going to have to depend on what they
see on the ground, in real time.

Hmm, the radar went down but I bet two-way radios still worked and maybe
even their cell phone. Having someone to call and use for a backup for storm
data is a good idea when out in the field.:)

Tim
 
David Douglas said:
By the way, Rob, these are not 'free' resources.
Click to expand...

Yes, they are free. You aren't paying to use them, hence you don't have an expectation of 24x7 service. If you pay for the service, i.e. AllisonHouse, then you have that expectation (and they will deliver.)
 
Rob Wadsworth said:
I cannot accept a failure of time lost and needed data to be missing due to bandwidth issues and data flow.
Click to expand...

Because the NWS uses taxpayer dollars for their mission - saving life and protecting property. They do that through their forecasts and warnings, not through providing raw radar data to chasers. So their money doesn't go towards making sure their external radar servers work all the time - the money goes to making sure their internal radar servers work all the time. And that's exactly what happened. Anyone tapping in to the internal servers had no problems yesterday, and that's what people do who have a "critical" need.
 
Rob Wadsworth said:
Couldn't agree more. It is puzzling why these conditions should still be so. I can understand reception issues; I cannot accept a failure of time lost and needed data to be missing due to bandwidth issues and data flow.
:confused:
Click to expand...

I couldn't disagree more.

Show me where in the NWS charter it says that the NWS mission is to provide the fastest and most reliable radar data available to the public. I could have sworn it said something about protecting life and property. To this end, most of the NWS bandwidth is taken up by the distribution of data that the forecasters need to be able to do their job. I can't tell you how often I hear from forecasters, "Can we get XYZ?" only to find out the response is "We don't have the bandwidth to bring that in."

The NWS has one of the tightest budgets in the government; it isn't like they are squandering resources. In order to upgrade all the servers to provide a near 100% uptime with 0 latency for a potential 300 million users - which is essentially what you are asking - would take the entire NWS budget and then some. So unless you are willing to write your congressman asking for a) more money for the NWS budget or b) the firing of NWS employees to fund better computing resources, spend a couple bucks a month and get a private data feed. It's a mere fraction of the cost of the other equipment you are using, not to mention less than a tank of gas.
 
yea the on call sys admin probably had a power outage and his cell phone died.

I didn't experience any issues yesterday with radar updates but did have an issue with a 'dead zone' if you will trying to retrieve data in "No Where Kentucky" where ever that was.

That aside, I always am aware of what my time stamps are and what my radar looks like at all times, and of course outside the jeep window when visible. I am a bit shocked that they didn't see that sooner :(

Glad they made it out okay.
 
I don't know enough about the distribution of data from the radar sites. Can someone explain to me how the data feed to, say, Allisonhouse differs from the 'public' feed? Does NOAA have separate servers set up to provide more reliable feeds to companies like Allisonhouse? My thought is that my tax dollars were spent to buy the Radar sites, obviously the priority should be to the forecast offices. However, how come there are some feeds that have priority (that I can pay for) and some don't. This just does not make sense to me. I'm sure I'm missing something - so hopefully someone can explain how this works.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
John - True. Just like when you are taking flying lessons and your instructor snaps a little black cover over one of your instruments and says " You have lost that instrument, what are you going to do now?" We should all be ready for the same thing while chasing. Truthfully, that's why I don't stream video - I only shoot high resolution DSLR photography. Call me old-school but I love to get my head out of my... car :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
While I was 'arm chairing' the chase yesterday I noticed to the lvl 3 data was old..obviously due to the server overload..so I switched to lvl 2 and that was fine. Problem is if on the road lvl 2 carries more bandwidth and if tethering from a cell like I do it can take more time too..I have always used free data here for GR products..so far.. and never had a problem till yesterday.. on the other hand the weathertap data was okay if memory serves..which of course I do pay for. Allison house doesn't use public servers for data..they get it a different way.. After yesterdays example albiet perhaps an extreme case it indeed is a risk to be in that type of situation with free data.. I too have suffered from old data on road and it is easy to get wrapped into the image forgetting to look at the time..most of my problems were lost connections.. I have been chasing for many years prior to a laptop in the car and have relied soley on a weather radio and my eyes and a map. It worked out pretty good. Of course now having radar is a great tool but this latest thing reminded me to remember my skills and use the data to enhance them esp. when near the storm..Now if we can just get something failry close up here again.. ;)
 
AllisonHouse had same problem

I had a pretty long data outage Saturday, also, and I was using AllisonHouse server for GR3 polling. I was in NE MS, using mainly Memphis and Columbus radar.

I just went to my GR3 data folders, and started looking at the files for Saturday from KNQA. VIL and TOPS are there, but BR0.5, BR1.5, BV0.5, SRV0.5, SRV1.5, SRV2.5 are not. These are the *.rv3 files, in windows under $YOUR_HOME_DIR\Application Data\GRLevel3\kxxx, where kxxx is the site abbreviation.

The last file that contains all the products is:
knqa_20100424_174733.rv3
After that, the remainder of the files are missing the BR and SRV products listed above. This runs through:
knqa_20100424_203239.rv3
when I turned off Memphis radar.

Did anyone else with A.H. have these issues?

TonyC
 
Tony Cook said:
I just went to my GR3 data folders, and started looking at the files for Saturday from KNQA. VIL and TOPS are there, but BR0.5, BR1.5, BV0.5, SRV0.5, SRV1.5, SRV2.5 are not.

Did anyone else with A.H. have these issues?
Click to expand...

I had no problems on a solid connection. When chasing in questionable data coverage the strategy should be to reduce the number of products you're pulling to get a better success rate and less of a 'log jam' when you do lose coverage.

When chasing, I just have BR1, SRV1, and MAYBE ET or VIL, but not both, and usually not either.
 
David Douglas said:
I don't know enough about the distribution of data from the radar sites. Can someone explain to me how the data feed to, say, Allisonhouse differs from the 'public' feed? Does NOAA have separate servers set up to provide more reliable feeds to companies like Allisonhouse? My thought is that my tax dollars were spent to buy the Radar sites, obviously the priority should be to the forecast offices. However, how come there are some feeds that have priority (that I can pay for) and some don't. This just does not make sense to me. I'm sure I'm missing something - so hopefully someone can explain how this works.
Click to expand...

My guess is that NWS is pushing data TO Allisonhouse instead of AH pulling it down using NWS public servers. In addition, there are much fewer sites like AH getting data pushed to them (vs the GP), so a small server could handle all these tasks. I don't think there's any "priority", it's just that it's a different setup.

Also, look at it this way: you give AH one feed, and they provide data to thousands of customers and NWS has to allocate less of its tight budget to providing public servers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Bill Tabor
  • Sticky
Recommended Chaser Equipment List
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
78
Views
94K
Todd Lemery
Todd Lemery
Back
Top