Attention Users of the Free HTTP Data Feed

[StormAlertAdmin]

For a while I have been trying to source a problem (also reported by several users), where you will sporadically get a "Cannot process data" or "bad data on server" message when using the free HTTP server.

I am pleased to report that this morning, with the help of the NWS Telecommunications Gateway, we found the source of the problem. It turns out that several servers in their cluster were accidentally configured to eastern time instead of GMT. Therefore, when a user hits one of these servers initially, it sees "good data" that are stamped as 5 hours old (EST = GMT-5).

No server changes are permitted during critical weather (the major Plains storm) or the holidays, so the change for request won't be taken care of until the first week of January.

Although StormLab will auto-switch servers, I would recommend configuring StormLab to use the FTP server for the meanwhile.

Happy Holidays,
Evan