topic Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down? in ArcGIS Living Atlas Questions

Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

CDFWGISAdmin — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 23:31:38 GMT

Hi, is there any concern that USA Federal-related data currently hosted by Esri in value-added Living Atlas services and data downloads may be at risk of going offline with the new federal admin trends of reviewing and/or discontinuing data access? If so, any mitigation steps we can take to help ensure continued access? Thanks for any insight.

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

SteveCole — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 22:55:32 GMT

The most proactive thing that you can do is enter URLs of concern into the Internet Archive to have them archive the site. I have been able to retrieve older datasets from as far back as the mid 2000s from some Forest Service sites this way.

As for AGOL / Living Atlas, I would not have any concerns about a layer disappearing if the "owner" who has published the service is ESRI or ESRI associated. In these situations, they have likely copied the data from the original source and are publishing from that point of origin. Some federal agencies such as the Forest Service have published their datasets through AGOL under their agency accounts and those could fall victim to whatever happens.

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

EllenNodwell_IntegraShare — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 14:38:38 GMT

I am seeing data loss from NOAA data (Tropical Product - historical storm data layers) -My last contact with the team at NOAA was 23 of January; something is wrong with the listsrv (no updates); no one responding and the data from ArcGIS Living Atlas is not coming in, either.

If someone from the Living Atlas team could let us know about what's happening, that would be awesome. If anyone has any news, that would also be helpful.

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

George_Thompson — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 16:22:41 GMT

What specific product are you seeing the impact on?

Can you provide the URL?

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

BernSzukalski — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 17:56:42 GMT

I did a cursory check of all Living Atlas content (maps/apps/layers) in ArcGIS Online related to storms and specifically the historical storm content from NOAA. All seem to be fully operational with updates to feeds as of earlier today.

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

EllenNodwell_IntegraShare — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 22:04:48 GMT

I am continuing to work with my map - the 2024 storms apparently migrated off of recent (?) - bottom line, what I added from Living Atlas back in July is not functioning. Here is the data I've been working with. Recent Hurricanes, Cyclones and Typhoons - Overview I added it again - noted the update date is Feb 2025 (of that dataset publication).

In the meantime...

I checked the source listed in the info/meta data - found the Beryl data are available here: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gis/archive_besttrack.php as shapefiles, so I downloaded the Beryl data and will build layers to publish myself so I can use them in my web experience application. I'll just have to do the re-work. Since my topic is Beryl, I'm not going to fret about the other 2024 US storms not being there for now.

I did try re-adding from Living Atlas, but the USA storms still do not show up - Helene, Milton... not there. Not the best sceen clip - but you can see the gold color symbols where the storms from Indian Ocean over across into Asia are present, nothing in GOM, Atlantic, or Pacific near the US states or territories, or below.

Guess it is good to know how far back "recent" actually goes in the definition of that dataset. It says past hurricane season, which in my thinking would be the one that included Beryl, and the rest to the end of the 2024 season... Maybe I'm off base here... You tell me.

So, if you see data for the USA in your map, let me know. I just added this freshly from Living Atlas into my map, so it should be what you are seeing. I have not applied any filters or anything to the data.

Thanks

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

EllenNodwell_IntegraShare — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 22:14:54 GMT

Hey Bernie - some of the layers in that dataset don't have any data - the wind swath doesn't have any data in it... Definitely something is going on with the feeds that make up that dataset...

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

BernSzukalski — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 06:21:43 GMT

Hi Ellen... Can you provide the link? I checked again and all the live feeds seem to be up-to-date and operating normally for me. I expect you are using this? https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=691f70d9a8b04cc2977467c2a2274d21

If so it seems to be operating normally and is up to date.

I also checked the Live Feeds Dashboard, all good there...

https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/livefeeds-status/

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

EllenNodwell_IntegraShare — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:51:29 GMT

Hey Bern, Actually, that one is not the one - here is the link to the one I've been using specifically for hurricanes (Beryl was the topic of my application)... Recent Hurricanes, Cyclones and Typhoons - Overview

As of just a minute ago, the USA storms are still not present and the wind swath table is empty.

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

BernSzukalski — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:38:50 GMT

Ok, I see that now. Sending it on to the team...

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

BernSzukalski — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:18:10 GMT

The team reports that there hasn't been any activity on the source side for a few days - National Hurricane Center and Joint Typhoon Warning Center

So there is nothing for the feed to update.

NHC Active Tropical Cyclones

Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

BernSzukalski — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 20:56:42 GMT

The team reports that there is only one event developing from JTWC, with no updates from NHC for several days.

https://www.metoc.navy.mil/jtwc/jtwc.html

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/cyclones/

Re: Any concern that Living Atlas Federal USA data may go away or be taken down?

EllenNodwell_IntegraShare — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 18:15:10 GMT

I was not using the active storms data, but the other one entitled Recent Hurricanes Cyclones and Typhoons https://services9.arcgis.com/RHVPKKiFTONKtxq3/arcgis/rest/services/Recent_Hurricanes_v1/FeatureServer with the summary overview:

Summary

This layer features tropical storm (hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones) tracks, positions, and observed wind swaths from the past hurricane season for the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Basins.

2024 is the past hurricane season. I just wanted to clarify which data I was trying to use. That data that was present (from Beryl, 2024 Hurricane) but is no longer present, so whatever "decides" what data to show via some algorithm, is not showing the technically "past" hurricane season's data for the US (Atlantic) as of now.

Bottom line, whatever criteria is used, it appears that the data isn't coming through for the 2024 US hurricane "season" (the last season).

As I also mentioned, I am DIY now because the service feed from Living Atlas is not dependable as a source for the past hurricane season. A link that contains the data for these storms is here: NHC GIS Archive - Tropical Cyclone Best Track - year can be changed to find other than 2024 storms... This is mentioned as a source in the Esri Living Atlas Dataset "Recent Hurricanes Cyclones and Typhoons".

With the recent firings at NWS/NOAA, likely grabbing historical data while it's still there is something we all need to think about, as well as understanding what our sources for these feeds will be in the future if weather and other federal government feeds cease to exist.

I am in the NASA SPoRT Stakeholder group which has announced a stakeholder meeting coming up on April 2nd, and I receive notifications about through the list server here: The Ncep.list.nos-nowcoast-status Archives - people can sign up for notifications on the list server here: Ncep.list.nos-nowcoast-status Info Page

I plan on asking questions at the stakeholder meeting if it does go on as scheduled.

One of the project managers suggested that people sign up to the Ncep list server to get these updates.

For what it's worth - hope it helps people who depend on weather feeds for their work here in Esri-Land.

Keep mapping!