Information about SWPC Data and Products
Acknowledging Space Weather Prediction Center
The information on government servers are in the public domain,
unless specifically annotated otherwise, and may be used freely
by the public. Before using information obtained from this server
special attention should be given to the date & time of the
data and products being displayed. This information shall not be
modified in content and then presented as official government material.
Acknowledgment is appreciated:
Information from the Space Weather Prediction Center,
Boulder, CO,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), US Dept.
of Commerce
Recent Notices
GOES 10 X-ray Outages During Eclipse Season
Feb 21, 2008 -- GOES 10 X-ray outages due to spacecraft eclipse
season started Feb 20 and will continue for about 40 days (April 1). Maximum eclipse
duration will reach about 65 minutes peaking in the middle of the interval (March 11).
Currently, X-ray sensors (XRS) are not operational on other GOES satellites to fill
in for the GOES-10 eclipses.
GOES 10 Becomes Primary X-ray Satellite, no Secondary Satellite
February 11, 2008 -- GOES 11 X-ray data has been unavailable since Feb. 10. The expectation is that GOES 11 X-rays will remain unavailable. Other GOES 11 data is still available.
GOES 10 has been moved to the primary SWPC X-rays data. There is no secondary GOES X-ray data at this time. GOES 10 data resumed at 1630 UT Feb 10 and will continue indefinitely.
GOES-12 XRS and SXI Out of Commission Indefinitely
Impact: on XRS: GOES 11 designated Primary GOES satellite and GOES 10 Secondary. Routine GOES-12 XRS observations suspended indefinitely.
Impact on SXI: Routine GOES-12 SXI observations suspended indefinitely.
August 24, 2007 -- On 12 April 2007 the ability to point the SXI and XRS solar sensors aboard the GOES-12 spacecraft was lost due to the failure of a component in the electronics box that controls the north-south motion of both instruments. Although the SXI and XRS instruments continue to function, the Sun now enters the field of view only for a brief period twice a year at the equinoxes.
Since it appears highly unlikely that the pointing functionality can be ever be recovered, routine GOES-12 SXI and XRS observations have been suspended indefinitely. Some limited imaging may be attempted for engineering purposes during the equinoxes, but there is no plan at present to reactivate SXI and XRS in operational mode.
Using GNU Wget to
Retrieve Web or Anonymous FTP files
June 15, 2006 -- GNU
Wget is a free software package for retrieving files
using HTTP, HTTPS and FTP, the most widely-used Internet protocols.
Its a non-interactive command line tool, so it may be called from
scripts, cron jobs, terminals without X-Windows support, etc.
GNU
Wget has many features to make retrieving files from
web or FTP sites easy. GNU Wget runs on most UNIX-like operating
systems as well as Microsoft Windows, and is included with most
LINUX distributions.
Example: Retrieve the Solar Region Summary
from SWPC and store it in a directory called "latest"
relative to the users current directory.
wget --ignore-length -N -O latest/SRS.txt http://www.SWPC.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/SRS.txt
--ignore-length This flag prevents problems with incorrect content
length
-N Turns on timestamping. This switch will cause the file to
be retrieved only when it has changed on the server.
-O (upper case 'O') This switch is used to specify the output
filename in this case latest/SRS.txt
There are many other options. For example, the --continue option appends only new content to a local file. Refer to wget
manual
The UNIX cron utility may be used to schedule wget retrievals.
For example, to retrieve the SWPC Solar Region Summary report the
following command would connect to the SWPC web server at 5:40pm
and 8:40pm. In this case the '-q' switch has been added which
suppresses output from wget. Check with your crontab documentation
for specific syntax. Also, it may be necessary in some installations
to include a full path to wget executable.
40 17,20 * * * wget --ignore-length -Nq -O /tmp/latest/SRS.txt
http://www.SWPC.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/SRS.txt
SWPC Data Disclaimer
Because of the SWPC / NWS emphasis on providing data as quickly
as possible, some values are preliminary. SWPC / NWS cannot guarantee
the overall quality and reliability of preliminary data and does
not encourage its use for research purposes.
SWPC announces changes and data problems in this page and in NEWS.txt.
Continuing expansion and enhancements to SWPC services occasionally
result in format changes in displays and reports. SWPC attempts to
give advance notice of changes to data and products in this page
and NEWS.txt.
SWPC does not include advertisements for commercial space weather
products and services, nor does it make commercial products available
on SWPC's Web site. However, SWPC provides a non-endorsed list of
commercial space weather providers
as a service to its customers.
Also see the NWS Disclaimer
Troubleshooting Tips
Problem: Receive an error message when trying to access
an SWPC web page, especially when the problem persists for more than
an hour.
Situation: SWPC's web services are quite robust although
intermittent errors and system problems do occur. Historically
the web server up-time is more than 99%. However, when a web browser
receives a failure notice it often caches this response
and then continues to return the failure notice to the browser
user instead of trying to reload the failed web page.
Resolution: There are several approaches to clearing a
cached failure message:
- Force your browser to reload the failed page by using reload
or shift reload.
- Clear your browser cache manually. On IE: Tools/Internet Options/Delete
Temporary Internet Files. On Netscape: Edit/Preferences/Clear
History.
Alerts and Forecasts - A table of SWPC Alert and Warning
products, and SWPC products which contain forecasts of Space Weather
data.
Archive - An archive source for this product or an archive
of the data contained in the product.
ASC - The ACE Science Center (ASC) at www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ASC
has an on-line archive of ACE data.
ASCII Text Lists - In Measurements tables, products
are grouped by their format. ASCII text lists are simple
text files. Most of the text files are in table format that is both
human readable and a fixed format for machine decoding. The SWPC
generated lists follow a standard format conversion.
Indices - A table of SWPC products which contain standard
space weather indices, e.g. sunspot numbers or 10.7cm solar radio
flux.
Latest - The latest, most recently updated, version on this
product.
Measurements - A table of SWPC products which contain data
from direct space weather measurements. Measurements tables are organized by the format of the products; Real-time Displays
and Plots, ASCII Text Lists, and Solar Images
Models - A table of Space Weather products based on space
weather models. Models which a summary of current conditions are
called Nowcasts. Some models provide a prediction
of future conditions.
NGDC - The National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), the
National Geophysical Data Center, archives Solar-terrestrial Physics
data. Much of the real-time data received at SWPC are archived both
online and off-line by NGDC. However, the data are not archived
in the SWPC format.
No - This form of the data is not available at SWPC or at
another site that we are aware of.
Older - An online directory or web page for older, previously
issued, products. The wording indicates how much older data is available.
For example, "75 day" means that products issued in the last 75
days are available, "from 1999" means all products issued since
January 1999 are available.
Readme - A descriptive text about the product with information
such as: contents, source, when the product is generated or issued,
and sources for further information. The  icon is a link to the descriptive text.
"--" indicates no descriptive text is available for this product.
Real-time Displays and Plots - In Measurements tables,
products are grouped by their format. Products in the Real-time
Displays and Plots section present data graphically.
Real-time displays are web pages that update dynamically
while plots refers to static plots that present either recent
or past data. These products are bar graphs, line plots, or 2-D
presentations.
Reports and Summaries - A table of SWPC products which contain
reports and summaries of Space Weather data.
Title - The product Title of the product or a brief description
of the data contained in the product. Products are ordered within
the table by the speed at which they are updated or issued. The
products which update fastest are first. Subheadings in the Title
column indicates update rates, e.g. As Conditions Warrant, Daily
or less, Weekly, Monthly, Longer.
Update - The product's update interval. For example, "5-min"
means the product is updated every 5-min, "1st week of the month"
means the product is updated once a month during the first week
of the month.
Updating - A web page that automatically refreshes itself
with new information at a fixed interval with no user interaction.
"--"- Indicates no descriptive text is available for this
product.
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