Full Notification

The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Anchorage, AK will be conducting a mandatory, scheduled update to their Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) system from Monday June, 9th through approximately Wednesday, June 11th. The NWS uses the AWIPS computer system to display and integrate weather and water information, and to send life-saving information, such as weather and water warnings, to the public.
During the time of the update, forecast operations will be conducted by NWS Anchorage meteorologists at our service back-up location at Regional Headquarters to minimize any potential interruption to services. Our core services of forecast products and weather watches, warnings and advisories are expected to continue during this period and will be available online at weather.gov/Anchorage. However, the following services will be affected during the upgrade downtime:
● NOAA Weather Radio (NWR): All NOAA Weather Radio transmitters maintained by the NWS in Southern Alaska will be off air through the time of the install. The weekly radio test will be cancelled Wednesday, June 11.
● Some locally produced forecast graphics available on our website will not be updated. This includes our automated weather story forecast graphics (daily high temperature, and probability of precipitation) on our front page.
● Some observations that initiate through the Anchorage system will not be disseminated to the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC).
● Local climate summaries (CLI and CF6 products) will not be updated, but data will be backfilled as soon as the system is restored.
Our office will work directly with key partners, like the US Coast Guard and the Marine Exchange of Alaska, to ensure all warnings are disseminated, through alternate means if necessary.
The marine forecast and observations that play on NOAA Weather Radio and over VHF weather channels are a critical resource for the safety of the marine community across Southern Alaska. For this reason, a Public Information Statement announcing the outage has been disseminated and will continue to play on all NWR transmitters once an hour over the coming days. Please share this outage information with your network and post to neighborhood and/or harbor bulletin boards as you are able.
The forecast office in Anchorage will remain open and staffed throughout this period for public and partner phone calls and additional functions that can be completed without AWIPS.
Please direct any questions you may have about this outage to:
Aviva Braun
Warning Coordination Meteorologist
[email protected]
907-266-5117