Starting in AX-3.6, the NwsWeatherProvider also accesses an EPA-hosted server, to retrieve air quality metrics. See About EPA connections for related details.

The U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) provides a weather.gov website, allowing access to a variety of meteorological data. Included are current weather conditions, as well as forecasts for selected locales.

In its internal operation, the NiagaraAX WeatherService accesses some of these same NWS HTTP servers to update the weather report for any NWS locale. See About NWS connections for related details. Two methods are used to retrieve weather data for any locale: a URL-based query to a specific “station ID” for current weather conditions, and a SOAP query for weather forecast conditions, using that locale’s longitude/latitude coordinates.

In these two queries to an NWS locale, Niagara uses the “station ID” as well as the longitude/latitude data found in the “nwsStationList.xml” file inside the station’s local weather module. Each locale entry in that file also in includes a 2-character region code (typically a U.S. state), and the text name/descriptor for that locale.

Figure 42 shows some example contents of the nwsStationList.xml file in the weather module.

When adding a new NWS report, this list is the source for region code and name/descriptor choices in drop-down selection lists, as shown in Figure 5. After adding a report, you also see its four-character “station ID” on the NwsWeatherProvider property sheet, as shown in Figure 8.

Also see the next section Updated NWS stations list.