Haleh Kootval Chief, Public Weather Services WMO Geneva 23 April 2013 The International Register of Alerting Authorities

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities2 Outline  What is the international Register of Alerting Authorities?  Why is the Register necessary?  What are the key features of the Register?  How are the Register entries maintained?  What is in the Register now?

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities3  Established by WMO (Public Weather Services) and ITU-T (using the OID register)  Identifies officially recognized alerting authorities, designated by WMO Members  Register has categories of alert messages, plus URL's for forecasts and CAP messages  Users of alert messages and others can subscribe to a news feed to stay current with any changes to the Register What is the International Register of Alerting Authorities?

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities4  Developed for WMO PWS  Members identify their officially recognized alerting authorities for all types of hazards  Register has categories of alert messages, plus URL's for forecasts and CAP messages  Aggregators of alert messages and others can subscribe to a news feed to stay current with any changes to the register  db.wmo.int/alerting/authorities.html The WMO Register of Alerting Authorities

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities5 Why is the Register necessary?  Aggregators and other intermediaries typically lack direct knowledge needed to distinguish an authoritative source of alert messages  This lack becomes more critical as alerting makes more use of large public networks  The Register of Alerting Authorities is a tool to address this gap  Each Register entry indicates a particular source of alert messages designated by a WMO Member as authoritative, for particular categories of hazards over a particular area

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities6 What are the key features of the Register?

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities7

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities8 The Register itself is linked to the ISO/ITU OID Tree

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities9 Register entries are typically linked to a nation

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities10 U.S. entry in the OID tree links back to the WMO register link to US entry in the Register

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities11 Administrative Procedure for Registering WMO Alerting Identifiers

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities12 RSS Feed for Changes in Registered Authorities

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities13 View Source of RSS Feed

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities14 How are the Register entries maintained?  WMO letter to all PRs in 2009 describing the Register; recent follow-up letter  PRs were requested to designate an editor to maintain Register records for the Member’s alerting authorities  The designated editor is approved by WMO/PWS and selects a password  Each editor maintains Register entries on behalf of the Member  The Register application is being redeveloped to operate at Hong Kong Observatory and will be backed up by South Africa Weather Service

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities15 What is in the Register Now?  The Register holds at least one alerting authority for each of the 191 WMO Members  There are 231 separate alerting authorities in the Register  About half of the WMO Members have officially designated one or more editors (over 100 editors currently)

23 April 2013The International Register of Alerting Authorities16 Thank You URL for WMO Register of Alerting Authorities