Iowa Environmental Mesonet

Iowa State University Department of Agronomy

Archived NWS Watch/Warning GIS Shapefiles

This page allows you to generate a GIS shapefile of NWS issues watches and warnings for a time period of your choice. Please be sure to read the archive status and dbf schema below. The IEM's archive is certainly not complete or official. If you are looking for a real-time source of warning shapefiles, you can find that here.

Select time interval

(Times are in UTC. Watches/Warnings issued between these times will be included in the output GIS file...)
YearMonthDay HourMinute
Start:
End:

Shapefile DBF schema:

WFO     Three letter ID for issuing Weather Forecast Office
ISSUED  String representing product initial valid GMT timestamp YYYYMMDDHHMM
EXPIRED String representing product expiration, this is not the original 
        product expiration, but the actual time the product was no longer
        valid.  For example, the product could have been extended in time
        or cancelled.
PHENOM  VTEC phenomena code.  Ex)  SV == Severe Thunderstorm , TO == Tornado
GTYPE   Geographical type of polygon.  C == County, P == Polygon
SIG     VTEC significance. Ex) A == Watch, W == Warning
ETN     VTEC Event Tracking Number
STATUS  VTEC last value of status for the product.  Often EXP == Expire
NWS_UGC NWS code used for a zone of a county

Archive status:

Dataset componentStart TimeNotes
TOR / SVR Warnings 27 Nov 2003 (Polygons)
10 Feb 2003 (Countries)		 Only the initial polygon is used. Polygon updates in the SVS statements are ignored. The VTEC attributes didn't appear until they became operational.
All VTEC watch/warn 12 Nov 2005 Products other than TOR, SVR
SVR,TOR Watch by County 12 Nov 2005