NOAA Success Story

Recently I have been perturbed by the absence of telemetry from one of my favorite weather stations.  I have been unable to access it all summer long, and it briefly came back online early this fall.  Then once again it was offline and remained so.  I decided that maybe they took it down because no one appeared to be using it's data, or no one noticed that it was down. So yesterday I sent an email to the NOAA webmaster asking for help. Below is the email:

Hello,

I am writing to determine the status of Weather Station BAK42.  This station is situated near the Mt. Baker Ski Area in Washington.  It was unavailable all summer, and was briefly brought back online this fall, but is once again unavailable.  ...And has remained so for a significant period of time.  The meteorological information that station BAK42 provides is a critical tool for me and my colleagues in determining past and present conditions in the vicinity of the Mount Baker Wilderness and Mt. Baker Ski Area.
     I kindly ask that this station return to it's normal operating status as quickly as possible.  Please forward this request to all relevant individuals.  For reference I have provided the URL with which my colleagues and I normally access BAK42's telemetry.  The latitude and longitude and elevation as provided by the NOAA web site are included below as well.

www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=sew&sid=BAK42

Mount Baker, WA (BAK42)
Elev: 4219 ft; Latitude: 48.865; Longitude: -121.678

Thank you for your quick action on this matter.

Sincerely,

Chris Mosetick

Within one day of my email I was able to access the telemetry from this station. (one of my favorite winter time weather stations)  I never received a reply from NOAA, so it could be a strange coincidence, (highly unlikely) but the situation was handled immediately.  Now I am trying to determine why the snow depth info is absent.  ...As that's what I need the most.

I wanted to share this experience with the TAY community because I want other members to know that if something is bothering you and you kindly and professionally let someone know, sometimes a remedy or solution will happen.  So if by any chance your favorite weather station is not providing telemetry lately, speak up and say something to the right people!!!

Perhaps you don't realize it, but the data at www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=sew&sid=BAK42 appears to be just a limited subset of the data from the NWAC Mt Baker telemetry site, with a few plots above it.  Compare the current data from both sources for proof.  And it's missing a bunch of columns too, like 24-hr snow, total precip, and 5000' temp, RH, and winds. I think that there's no such thing as "Weather Station BAK42", I assume that BAK42 is just the Mesowest code for that NWAC site.

Much more complete data from that site can now be found at www.nwac.us/weatherdata/mtbakerskiarea/now/ (it used to be at www.nwac.us/products/OSOMTB before the new NWAC website went online last week).

Sorry if I stomped on your feeling of success, but hopefully you'll appreciate having access to the complete data set from your favorite weather station.  The NWAC telemetry from that site was available most of the summer, although there were a few lengthy outages.

I think you may been outgeeked by Amar there Moestick.

If it's any consolation, I like your explanation better, shows optimism and an attempt to make things better, both things I've always admired . :

Amar, I thank you for bringing this fact to everyone's attention, and I do not feel stomped on.  Like yourself, pretty much since forever I have thought they might be one and the same, even though the elevations have always appeared slightly different on the two presentations (4,210 vs. 4,219.)  As far as addressing the station as BAK42, I was not sure how to refer to the station in the context of an email, so the mesowest code BAK42 seemed more appropriate than calling it "that station up there by the ski area"  I wanted to be select with my words, as referring to the station as "the NWAC station" might get me into a pass the responsibility situation, with a deferment to NWAC and possibly a delay in bringing the telemetry back online. (I realize they are working out of the same building in Seattle)

If not already clear, my main point in sharing this on TAY was not to appear as a hero, but rather that one person can make a difference when it comes to things that are totally out of their control.  In addition, I hope it is not wrong of me to desire both be available all the time?  If I am not mistaken, the NWAC version is only available in the winter??  As you have agreed, the NOAA version was unavailable a good portion of this summer.  Are there no hikers or TAY'ers that might want to access the NOAA version, albeit, scaled down, in July??  ...I know I was on Ptarmigan Ridge skiing on June 21st this year!!

One more thing I wish to point out.  Each version updates to the respective web sites at different intervals.  ie the Noon data on the NOAA site is available before the noon data on the NWAC site.  To my knowledge the NWAC version always lags behind the NOAA version.  I use this to my advantage when setting out for trips early in the morning, as I know the NOAA version of it's limited data set will be more current.

If I am not mistaken, the NWAC version is only available in the winter??  As you have agreed, the NOAA version was unavailable a good portion of this summer.  Are there no hikers or TAY'ers that might want to access the NOAA version, albeit, scaled down, in July??  ...I know I was on Ptarmigan Ridge skiing on June 21st this year!!

One more thing I wish to point out.  Each version updates to the respective web sites at different intervals.  ie the Noon data on the NOAA site is available before the noon data on the NWAC site.  To my knowledge the NWAC version always lags behind the NOAA version.  I use this to my advantage when setting out for trips early in the morning, as I know the NOAA version of it's limited data set will be more current.

Actually, the NWAC website has been up year-round, at least as long I have been following it closely (several years). Some of the telemetry sites have outages, and some sensors (especially snow depth) at some sites are intentionally turned off or removed during the summer, but otherwise everything is available in July or any other month.

As for the data being available an hour earlier on the NOAA Mesowest link: I don't think that's possible. If you look at the header of the time column, the original NWAC data is always in Standard Time (PST) year-round, while the Mesowest uses Daylight Saving Time when appropriate (PDT now).  Right now as I'm typing this, the last line of data direct from NWAC is "10 29 2100", while the latest data from the NOAA Mesowest link is listed as "29 Oct 10:00 pm", but the actual data (temp, RH) is identical for both sources when you make the 1-hour correction.

And when I just checked again, the NWAC now has "10 29 2200" and the other one has "29 Oct 11:00 pm", so it appears that they update roughly simultaneously.

The fact that the NWAC telemetry stays on Standard Time year-round throws a lot of people off. One needs to mentally correct for the one hour offset throughout most of the year, since DST is observed for almost 8 months of the year now in the US (from 2nd Sunday in March to 1st Sunday in November).

The fact that the NWAC telemetry stays on Standard Time year-round throws a lot of people off.  One needs to mentally correct for the one hour offset throughout most of the year...

Your astute observations are the cornerstone of TAY.  This has managed to slip past me, even though I have wondered why data does not always match up.  Thank you!!