Wow, today #NWS decommissioned their iNWS website and systems due to cybersecurity vulnerabilities. They now want us to submit storm reports via their Slack channel.
PDF of service change announcement from National Weather Service: https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/pdf_2026/scn26-92_iNWS_Decommission.pdf
#wx #NWS #weather #iNWS #NationalWeatherService #StormReports
#NWS uses a Slack channel to connect all of the Coordination Warning Areas (places that your local weather office covers for forecast and warnings) within a given state. My state, #Oregon has four NWS offices that cover different parts of the state: Portland, Pendleton, Medford and Boise.
It was a way to provide storm reports that meteorologiats could use to improve models. No longer. They just want us to send them a message in Slack. At least #CoCoRaHS is still a thing.
@camless 😬
Oct 22, 2026, 9:04 PMAs an outsider, this sounds insanely short-sighted, and very much like the #USA administration is trying to gut #NOAA by steadily destroying its infrastructure.
My interest is primarily in Ag, and marine weather. I am very curious how this might affect farmers. (I am already migrating away from US-based products for marine wx.)
@camless This seems like the worst possible use for Slack.
@ddr I mean, it's kinda nice to be able to talk to all four offices that cover your state at once. Not great for storm reporting especially because not everyone can have access to the NWS Slack channel... only govs.
@camless I'm sorry but this is the government
who even has Slack?
@sarae That's where NWSChat 2.0 lives lol
@camless surely you could be doing that in an Excel spreadsheet saved in Teams
you know, the way the rest of us run our chat servers on government infrastructure
@sarae Yep, using MS Forms to maintain the format. I do chat with NWS in Teams from time to time
@camless my personal Peak Government Computing experience is still probably using Sharepoint to publish a newsletter
but I will admit that the thing where we've built an intergovernmental chat network in a Teams document group in the back corners of an Oregon state network that will remain nameless is a close second
@camless 😬
@camless it seems like such a bad idea to build critical public systems with dependencies on private platforms. I get that we do that all the time with electricity and telecom services, but those industries are regulated. Slack isn’t regulated. So short sighted!