LINCOLN, Ill. (WCIA) – The National Weather Service Office in Lincoln is set to undergo a planned software upgrade, which will temporarily impact some of their services.
This necessary upgrade to the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is part of a nationwide update being performed at different times across all offices.
The AWIPS is crucial for displaying and integrating weather and water data, and it plays a vital role in delivering life-saving weather warnings to the public.
The upgrades will begin at around 7:00 A.M. on Tuesday, June 3rd and last through approximately 4:00p on Thursday, June 5th.
One major impact of this upgrade is all NOAA Weather Radio transmitters operated through the NWS Office in Lincoln will be offline during that time.
Those impacted towers that will be offline and unavailable to use from Tuesday through Thursday are:
- Bloomington: KZZ-65 (162.525 MHz, channel 6)
- Champaign: WXJ-76 (162.550 MHz, channel 7)
- Galesburg: KZZ-66 (162.400 MHz, channel 1)
- Jacksonville: WXM-90 (162.525 MHz, channel 6)
- Newton: KXI-48 (162.450 MHz, channel 3)
- Paris: KXI-47 (162.525 MHz, channel 6)
- Peoria: WXJ-71 (162.475 MHz, channel 4)
- Shelbyville: KXI-46 (162.500 MHz, channel 5)
- Springfield: WXJ-75 (162.400 MHz, channel 1)
Some users close to alternate towers may be able to get weather alerts by reprogramming their NOAA Weather Radio. Those additional counties in our viewing area with potential alternative access include Vermilion, Crawford, Macoupin, Cass, McLean, and Fayette counties. Other counties will not have any access to the radio system during the time.
With the upcoming outage and severe weather possible in parts of our area on Tuesday and Wednesday, an alternative way to get weather alerts includes WeatherCall, a location-specific method to get weather warnings. You can also download the WCIA 3 Weather app for more detailed alerts that will follow your location on your mobile devices.
The upgrades to AWIPS will also affect other core services, but nearby offices will assist in helping to keep things moving. Both the National Weather Service Offices in Chicago and St. Louis will be utilized to ensure that forecasts, alerts and other weather information still get out to the public.
Other services that will be negatively impacted, however, include the Forecast Recordings generated daily. Those forecast recordings rely on the NOAA Weather Radio, and are normally accessed by the public by calling 217-732-7321.
Graphical hazardous weather outlooks will also be impacted, but the corresponding text products normally generated will be issued by the nearby back up offices.
Finally, the daily temperature and precipitation analysis maps will not be updated during the outage.
This same critical systems upgrade happened at the National Weather Service Office in Indianapolis in early May.
