Public Safety

New Live Feeds Weather Data Goes Live

Many of us start the day with the same routine (after making coffee): checking the weather forecast. Why? Individually, it determines everything from what we wear outside, if we bring the umbrella, and the small talk in the elevator. Professionally, it determines if we need to activate the Emergency Operations Center, what will be the working conditions for teams in the field, and if we need to take any special precautions.

emergency operations center
The Emergency Operations Center at the California Office of Emergency Services uses a series of ArcGIS web maps and Operations Dashboards to maintain situational awareness and real-time event tracking.

Reliable and accurate weather information is critical not just for planning our days, but also for protecting lives and property, rerouting commerce and logistics around the world, and identifying vulnerable assets as inclement weather approaches. These assessments underscore why having weather information available in a GIS is becoming increasingly more necessary.

For many years, Esri’s ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World has been providing a wealth of real-time weather information for the U.S. and the world from official data generated by the National Weather Service, NASA, USGS and other authoritative organizations. Esri has been evolving these weather and disaster services to meet the ever-increasing demand for the information while also leveraging our ever-improving technology.

maps created with live feeds
The Live Feeds weather and disaster data can be used to create a variety of maps and analyses in the ArcGIS platform.

A New Set of Weather Services

A series of new real-time weather maps and layers have been made available to the public. Instead of the older map service technology, these new layers are hosted as feature services, which include several key improvements:

 

global fires displayed in Operations Dashboard
Operations Dashboard built with the new Satellite (Thermal) Hotspots and Fire Activity layer from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.

 

The first batch of these services are now available and include:

While the heritage map service versions of these feeds will continue for the next year as you make the transition, you should begin moving to the feature service versions now before the map services are deprecated.

Stay tuned as we continue to release other improved services throughout the year, including Recent Earthquakes, USA Fire Activity, USA Drought Intensity, and even some completely new offerings. Additionally, we’ve been developing some new web maps, applications and dashboards that leverage these services with improved symbology and user experiences.

For comments or questions about this blog, please visit our Esri Public Safety GeoNet site.

About the authors

Dan leads development of ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World environmental content, which includes information about Earth's land, ocean, atmosphere, and ecosystems. Prior to Esri, Dan worked at NOAA for two decades, leading data visualization efforts for research, communications, and education.

Connect:

Jeff Baranyi currently serves as the Emergency Management and Fire Technical Lead on the Esri Public Safety Team. He is responsible for working closely with Esri’s Public Safety team and customers to define and advocate a set of industry focused solutions that promote the vision and value of the ArcGIS platform. Jeff also is the Operations Manager for the Esri Disaster Response Program (DRP). He is responsible for ensuring the program is operating effectively to support organizations and agencies impacted by complex emergencies and crisis.

Connect:

Next Article

Using Alternative Text for Equitable Storytelling

Read this article