(AX-3.6 and later) Starting in AX-3.6, each “Current” (CurrentConditions) component of any NwsWeatherProvider (locale) has a child “Advisories” container. Providing that the “Enabled” property of the Provider’s “AdvisoriesAlarmExt” is true (the default), NWS weather
advisories are dynamically modeled as “Advisory” components under this container.
Such advisories are initiated by provider-issued watches, warnings, and advisories of hazardous weather conditions, for that provider’s locale. When a weather advisory expires, the corresponding Advisory component is automatically removed from this container. Note that sometimes, there may be more than one weather advisory at a time, as shown in Figure 14.
While any advisory is effective, under the WeatherReport for this locale, the CurrentConditions component reflects an alarm in its “Status” property. During this period, that WeatherReport also appears in alarm (and is colored red) in the Weather Manager view of the WeatherService,
The AdvisoryContainer’s default view is the “Advisory Manager”, a tabular listing of current advisories. Double-click an advisory for a popup showing all advisory properties, including the complete text “Description” and “Instructions” issued by the provider. See Figure 18 for an example.
In addition to holding child Advisory components, the AdvisoryContainer has an “Alarm Enable” property and a related child
Alarm Properties container. See AdvisoryContainer properties.
You can also bind a Px BoundLabel widget to the AdvisoryContainer, to display the most urgent, severe, certain, or recent weather advisory, using special BFormat syntax. This syntax is:
%mostUrgent.weatherSummary% or
%mostSevere.weatherSummary% or
%mostCertain.weatherSummary% or
%mostRecent.weatherSummary%
The BoundLabel will display the advisory name, such as “Flood Warning” or “Wind Advisory”.
To avoid BFormat errors when advisories do not exist, append an “alternate” variable onto the BFormat syntax examples listed above. For example, you can use the following:%mostUrgent.weatherSummary.value?parent.weatherSummary.value%This will display either the most certain advisory—or if no advisories exist, the current weather summary.
The NWS uses the “Common Alerting Protocol” (CAP) in advisory messages, noting “urgency”, “severity”, and “certainty”. Urgency relates to “time available to prepare”, severity to “intensity of impact”, and certainty to “confidence in the observation or prediction”.
At the time of this document, more details about CAP in general can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Alerting_Protocol
http://docs.oasis-open.org/emergency/cap/v1.2/CAP-v1.2-os.pdf
Property sheet access of an AdvisoryContainer shows its single “Alarm Enable” configuration property and a child “AdvisoryAlarmSourceInfo” (Alarm Properties) container, as shown in Figure 15.
Configuration properties are:
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Alarm Enable
By default, this property is enabled (
true).-
If true, each weather advisory results in a Niagara alarm, routed using the Alarm Properties below. Note this differs from AX-3.5 alarm setup in the “AdvisoriesAlarmExt”, where an “Urgency” property existed, configurable to a “lower” urgency level (“Future”, “Past”, or “Unknown”).
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If set to
false, Niagara alarming does not occur from weather advisories. However, dynamic modeling of weather advisories using Advisory components does continue (in the case of a NwsWeatherProvider, the “Enabled” property of its “AdvisoriesAlarmExt” must be true).
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Alarm Properties
Contains typical “Alarm Source Info” child properties, two of which are described below.
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Alarm Class — (default is “Default Alarm Class”) Often, you create one or more alarm classes expressly for weather-related alarms, and specify one here. See the User Guide section “About alarm class” for alarm class details.
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Source Name — Specifies the “sourceName” seen in an alarm record, where the default value (as shown in Figure 20) results in the name of the parent WeatherReport (locale).
Remaining alarm properties operate as in similar alarm extensions for devices or points. For more details, see “About alarm extension properties” in the User Guide.
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(AX-3.6 and later behavior) The presence of an Advisory component under the Advisories container (AdvisoryContainer) results in a changed iconic Current Weather view (Px), along with an alarm status for both the CurrentConditions component and its parent NwsWeatherProvider.
If the “Alarm Enable” property of the AdvisoryContainer is true (the default), each advisory results in a Niagara alarm routed to the specified AlarmClass, containing weather provider data. See the following sections:
(Applies to advisories in both AX-3.6 and AX-3.5).
During an alarm condition for a WeatherReport (locale), the iconic Px widget for its CurrentConditions (Current Weather view) reflects the weather advisory, including changed text color. Figure 16 shows an example Current Weather view for a locale in a flood warning.
The default alarm text color is red, configurable in the Px editor (property AlarmStateBrush).
When the alarm condition clears (all provider-issued watches, warnings, and advisories have been canceled or expired), the Current Weather view returns to its normal state (see Figure 17 example).
In this case, there are no Advisory components under the AdvisoryContainer of the CurrentConditions component.
In AX-3.6 and later, a weather advisory results in an Advisory component created under the AdvisoryContainer. Typical access is from the Advisory Manger view of the AdvisoryContainer, where a double-click provides a popup dialog, as shown in Figure 18.
If the AdvisoryContainer’s “Alarm Enable” property is true, a corresponding Niagara alarm is routed to the specified AlarmClass in the station. Figure 19 shows the alarm record details for an alarm associated with the advisory above.
Among the entries in the Alarm Data portion of the AX-3.6 or later alarm record are the following:
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certainty — the enumerated value of the “Certainty” property received from the provider, for example “Possible”, “Likely”, and so on.
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description — text string from the provider that provides a complete description of the advisory.
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expires — date/timestamp of when the weather advisory expires.
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instructions — text instructions from the provider on what to do because of this advisory.
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msgText — the enumerated value of the CurrentConditions “state” property.
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severity — the enumerated value of the “Severity” property received from the provider, for example “Moderate”, “Minor”, and so on.
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sourceName — typically the name of the parent WeatherReport (locale), such as “Richmond”, etc. (unless “Source Name” under the “Alarm Properties” container has been edited from defaults).
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state — the alarm state and status of the CurrentConditions component.
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urgency — the enumerated value of the “Urgency” property received from the provider, for example “Immediate”, “Expected”, “Future”, and so on.
Once all weather watches, warnings, and advisories have been canceled or expired, the AdvisoryContainer alarm source returns the offnormal alarm to a normal condition.