NHC RSS Feeds
Tropical Cyclone Advisories released by the NHC are now available
through RSS. This page is a brief summary of RSS, what it does and how
you can use it.
What is RSS?
The latest version of RSS (2.0) is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication
(see specifications).
It is a method of summarizing the latest news and information from a website in a
lightweight form that can be easily read by a number of news readers or news aggregators.
Additionally, modern web browsers can interpret RSS directly without additional add-on software.
The idea of RSS is to give users the ability to quickly obtain the latest updates from a web site
in a headline or a news digest format. This in turn helps reduce load on the web servers
during high-traffic periods.
What do I need to use the RSS feeds?
Most modern web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox
and Internet Explorer 7 can read
RSS feeds automatically (sometimes they refer to the feeds as "Live Bookmarks"). Alternatively, you can use a stand-alone feed reader or
news aggregator. These are applications that can be set to read the feeds on a recurring basis,
generally once an hour or so.
Here is a list of feed
readers and news aggregators from the Open Directory Project.
Here is another list of feed readers and news aggregators.
Once you have installed a feed reader or news aggregator, you simply add the
NHC feed addresses to the list of feeds in the reader. The installation
instructions for the readers will help you with that. If your browser,
newsreader or aggregator uses "auto-discovery" then simply enter the
main NHC address (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov) and it will find all of
the active feeds.
What are NHC's feed addresses?
We currently offer several aggregate feeds:
- Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico tropical cyclones in English
- Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico tropical cyclones in Spanish
- Eastern Pacific tropical cyclones in English
- NHC Graphical Tropical Weather Outlooks
- NHC Podcasts/Audio Briefings
Note that at the present time our Spanish-language text products are limited
to the Tropical Weather Outlook and the Public Advisories for Atlantic,
Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico tropical cyclones. All of our Spanish text
products are courtesy of the
NWS San Juan Weather Forecast
Office, Puerto Rico.
Starting in 2005, we began offering per-storm feeds, where the feed
information is specific to each active storm. The feeds are numbered from
1-5 using the same number as is used for the advisories for an active storm
(this is called the "storm wallet" for historical reasons).
Here are the addresses for the feeds:
General NHC Feeds
Specific Feeds by Basin
Specific Feeds by Storm
You can click on the links to view the RSS feeds in your browser, but you might need a feed reader, news aggregator,
or modern web browser to process the information.
Technical Q&A
- Are there other NWS feeds?
-
Yes, the NWS has several other RSS feeds available. Please find the complete list at:
http://www.weather.gov/rss/.
- What version of RSS do you use?
-
At the present time our feeds use the RSS 2.0 specification. The feeds give
the date, time, and advisory number in a fixed format for the latest
advisories, along with the link to the advisory itself. We don't include the
actual advisory text in the feeds at this time, although we do include the
text for the latest Tropical Weather Outlook and Special Tropical
Disturbance Statements for the corresponding basin-wide feeds.
- Why is the RSS feed icon on the page?
-
The standard feed icon is currently in use across the Internet
to indicate to users that RSS feeds are available from the site.
RSS feeds are composed of XML code - XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language,
and is the basic lingo of the RSS technology. You can learn more about the
feed icons by visiting http://www.feedicons.com.
Have More Questions?
If you have problems, questions, or feedback regarding the RSS feeds, please send them to
our webmaster.
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