The National Centers for Environmental Information serves as the official repository for all federal weather and climate information, including satellites, radar, and surface observations. It is located in downtown in Asheville, NC. A number of my friends and colleagues work there and many of them have been affected by the flooding rains of Helene. They currently do not have power or internet so their website is down for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, the regional climate centers are mirror sites for the surface observations and other sites are also providing access to other databases that are normally provided by NCEI, so while this is inconvenient, no data are expected to be lost. Here is a statement that they put out earlier this week on their post-Helen status:
As many of our followers have realized by our recent silence, NCEI headquarters in Asheville, NC, has been severely impacted by Hurricane Helene. First and foremost, we’re grateful to report that all of our employees and staff have been accounted for. All data holdings–including paper and film records–are also safe.
The scale of destruction and impact Helene has had across the Southeast, especially on its people, has been massive, and we stand in solidarity with all who are suffering. We also want to express our deepest gratitude towards those who have reached out with support, and encourage all to keep expressing their support now and in the future. The road to recovery for the entire region will be a long one, and one we will be traveling as well, both as people and as an international data center focused on meeting the data information needs of those we serve.
All of the employees located at the North Carolina NCEI site also express how proud of and thankful we are for the 300 NCEI employees in Colorado, Maryland, Mississippi and around the country for their care, support and professionalism helping us recover. Our team is truly unmatched.
Now to more formal updates on NCEI’s functionality–here is what we know:
➢NCEI’s network service provider has limited functionality and there is no definitive timeline for when it will be fully operational.
➢All archived data at NCEI is currently inaccessible, and limited new data is being ingested. We are working with our partners to minimize the risk of any potential data loss; however, Helene has made many key products and services unavailable at this time.
➢Products impacted include access to NCEI’s weather and climate data. NCEI’s monthly State of the Climate reports and data will be be delayed until services are restored, which means the September 2024 U.S. and global climate reports, originally scheduled to be released on October 8 and 10 respectively, will be unable to meet this deadline. At this time, we do not have more specifics on when they might be available.
The scale of the loss many of us have seen is unimaginable to many, but our sense of duty as public servants that support our nation’s science, security, and data stewardship remains unwavering. We will be back as soon as we can.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/…/helene-devastates-southeast…
