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Home > About RSS

About RSS

This page is a brief summary of RSS, what it does and how you can use it.

What is RSS?

The latest version of RSS (2.0) is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication (see specifications). It is a method of summarizing the latest news and information from a website in a lightweight form that can be easily read by a number of news readers or news aggregators. Additionally, modern web browsers can interpret RSS directly without additional add-on software. The idea of RSS is to give users the ability to quickly obtain the latest updates from a web site in a headline or a news digest format. This in turn helps reduce load on the web servers during high-traffic periods.

What do I need to use the RSS feeds?

Most modern web browsers can read RSS feeds automatically (sometimes they refer to the feeds as "Live Bookmarks"). Alternatively, you can use a stand-alone feed reader or news aggregator. These are applications that can be set to read the feeds on a recurring basis, generally once an hour or so.
A non-US Government maintained list of RSS readers, aggregators and related software:

RSS Software

Once you have installed a feed reader or news aggregator, you simply add the NCEP feed addresses to the list of feeds in the reader. The installation instructions for the readers will help you with that. If your browser, newsreader or aggregator uses "auto-discovery" then simply enter the main NCEP address (http://www.ncep.noaa.gov) and it will find all of the active feeds.

You can click on the links to view the RSS feeds in your browser, but you might need a feed reader, news aggregator, or modern web browser to process the information.

Technical Q&A

Are there other NWS feeds?
Yes, the NWS has several other RSS feeds available. Please find the complete list at:
http://www.weather.gov/rss/.

What version of RSS do you use?
At the present time our feeds use the RSS 2.0 specification.

Why is the RSS feed icon on the page?
The standard feed icon is currently in use across the Internet to indicate to users that RSS feeds are available from the site. RSS feeds are composed of XML code - XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language, and is the basic lingo of the RSS technology. You can learn more about the feed icons by visiting http://www.feedicons.com.

Have More Questions?

If you have problems, questions, or feedback regarding the RSS feeds, please send them to our webmaster.



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Page last modified: Friday, 05-Dec-2008 17:56:20 UTC