WxML - NWS Text Products and XML

Donald Britton
National Weather Service

National Weather Service (NWS) products are not used to their fullest potential. In terms of sheer volume, the NWS could rival many publishing houses, but with so many documents created daily, current document-management techniques used by the NWS can be greatly improved. NWS text products such as forecasts and statements have many shortcomings, including being difficult to search, lacking any self-referent information useful in deciphering, precluding the use of standard punctuation, and occasionally suffering from improper formatting. The solution is to be found in Extensible Markup Language (XML), a text-based method for marking up documents. Such documents can be likened to self-contained databases with everything required to understand the data contained therein. XML documents are easier for machines to read, understand, and manipulate, while remaining readable for humans. An entire family of technologies has sprung up around XML which is taking the Internet and e-business world by storm. The NWS can leverage these inexpensive technologies to provide better products for consumers and save money for American businesses that use weather information.

BIO - Donald Britton Air Force Weather Observer 1976-1979 Meteorology (Private Industry) 1980-1990 NWS Met-Tech 1990-1995 NWS Meteorologist 1995-2001 NWS Information Technology Officer 2001 BS in Computer Science. 20 years experience in programming in meteorology, Internet apps, encoding/decoding text products.

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