So since there is this impending storm (blizzard, snow storm, snowmageddon, snowpocalypse, snowzilla) “Nemo” hitting us here on the East coast within a few hours, I figured a good topic might be on weather alert data. There is a bunch of data available from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) on their site. Data is available in several categories, including Forecasts, Watch/warnings, Storm Prediction Center Forecast Products, etc. In my very quick example I’m going to pick the “Watch / Warning” data for my region and display this using WPF for an easy visualization.

In short, the process is: get the data using “ServiceModel.Syndication”, parse through, and display!

 
The Xaml:

<Window x:Class="wpfAlert.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="Alerts" Height="319" Width="637" Background="#FFF1F1F1" WindowStyle="ToolWindow" SizeToContent="WidthAndHeight">
    <Grid>

        <ScrollViewer Margin="10,41,10,27">

            <StackPanel x:Name="stkMain" Margin="10,10,10,10"/>

        </ScrollViewer>
        <Label x:Name="lblStatus" Content="Refreshing..." HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="10,10,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" FontWeight="Bold"/>
        <Label x:Name="lblStatusBot" Content="Refreshing..." VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Margin="10,0,0,0"/>

    </Grid>
</Window>

The Code:

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows;
using System.ServiceModel.Syndication;
using System.Xml;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Timers;
using System.Windows.Threading;
using System.Windows.Controls;

namespace wpfAlert
{

    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            loadAlerts();

            //  The Refresh Timer
            DispatcherTimer dispatcherTimer = new DispatcherTimer();
            dispatcherTimer.Tick += new EventHandler(dispatcherTimer_Tick);
            //5 Minutes
            dispatcherTimer.Interval = new TimeSpan(0, 5, 0);
            dispatcherTimer.Start();

        }

        private void dispatcherTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            loadAlerts();
        }

        private void loadAlerts()
        {

            stkMain.Children.Clear();

            Atom10FeedFormatter aReader = new Atom10FeedFormatter();
            using (XmlReader xmlReader = XmlReader.Create("http://alerts.weather.gov/cap/wwaatmget.php?x=NJC005&y=0"))
            {
                aReader.ReadFrom(xmlReader);
            }

            int aCount = 0;

            foreach (SyndicationItem sItem in aReader.Feed.Items)
            {

                //the alert summary
                TextBlock aTxt = new TextBlock();
                aTxt.Text = ((TextSyndicationContent)sItem.Summary).Text;
                aTxt.Width = 600;
                aTxt.VerticalAlignment = System.Windows.VerticalAlignment.Top;
                aTxt.TextWrapping = TextWrapping.Wrap;

                //a link to the entire alert
                Button aButLink = new Button();
                aButLink.Tag = sItem.Links[0].GetAbsoluteUri();
                aButLink.Width = 100;
                aButLink.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(alertLink_Click);
                aButLink.Content = "Alert Detail";

                //a panel to hold alert & link
                StackPanel aStk = new StackPanel();
                aStk.Children.Add(aTxt);
                aStk.Children.Add(aButLink);

                //title / expander
                Expander aExpand = new Expander();
                aExpand.Width = stkMain.Width;
                aExpand.Header = sItem.Title.Text;
                aExpand.Content = aStk;

                //add them to the form
                stkMain.Children.Add(aExpand);

                aCount++;

            }

            //update some label for info
            lblStatusBot.Content = aCount.ToString() + " Alerts Updated @ " + DateTime.Now.ToString();
            lblStatus.Content = aReader.Feed.Title.Text;
        }

        private void alertLink_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            //handle links
            Button aLink = (Button)sender;
            Process.Start(aLink.Tag.ToString());

        }

    }
}

Obviously we can go so much deeper with this – radar, email, gps – but the purpose of this was to just share a quick / fun sketch.