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Improving Road Weather Awareness Across State Lines |
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When winter storms cross state boundaries, travelers often have to switch how they receive road condition alerts and search for new sources of weather information. Because road weather communication varies from state to state, drivers can lose valuable time tracking down updates and setting up new alerts. The I-70/75 Aurora Pooled Fund project is tackling this challenge by deploying Pikalert®, a shared, multi-state road weather decision-support tool designed to provide consistent, real-time alerts across major interstate corridors.
Used by transportation agencies that are part of the Aurora Pooled Fund, Pikalert integrates radar, forecasts, and road weather observations to improve situational awareness during rapidly evolving weather events. Through Synoptic’s Weather API, multiple state Road Weather Information System (RWIS) networks are accessed from a single, reliable platform, helping Pikalert streamline deployment and support seamless data integration across jurisdictions. |
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The result? Stronger collaboration, improved continuity across state lines, and better decision-making when storms are underway. Read the full story to learn how this multistate partnership is improving road weather response. |
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Synoptic is growing! We’re currently hiring a Frontend React Developer and a Backend Software Engineer to help build and scale the tools and infrastructure that power real-time weather and environmental data.
If you’re passionate about high-impact software and want to support mission-driven work (or know someone who does), we’d love to hear from you!
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Product Spotlight: Weather API
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If you haven’t had a chance to explore our 2025 Weather in Review report that we released at AMS 2026, you can download it from our website and dive into significant weather events and data insights from the past year. Behind every analysis in the report is Synoptic’s Weather API — delivering flexible, low-latency access to real-time and historical environmental observations through a single, standardized interface. Additionally, our value-added services, such as Statistics and Percentiles and Precipitation Service, provided ways to further analyze the data. |
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Whether for operations or post-storm analysis, our API enables users to query quality-controlled, real-time and historical data across networks and time periods from one source, removing the complexity of managing multiple feeds.
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The High Frequency Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) network delivers real-time, 1-minute observations from over 1,000 stations across the United States. These stations report 15 different variables — from temperature to winds to visibility and more. The data provides some of the most granular and immediate weather observations in the country.
The High Frequency ASOS Network is a restricted network, and access to the data is available through Synoptic’s Weather API. Contact Synoptic to learn more.
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The Avista Utilities network of 50 weather stations has been integrated into the Synoptic platform. The network provides observations every 10 minutes, reporting seven variables.
Stations are located in eastern Washington and northern Idaho.
The observations provide situational awareness for users as well as valuable information about local weather patterns and environmental trends relevant to operations and planning. |
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The USDA network is located on an agricultural research farm near Fort Collins, CO, and includes a suite of weather and environmental instrumentation that can record data at up to 5‑minute resolution, although data are currently pushed to us once per day. Observations from this network contribute to a deeper understanding of local weather and soil conditions, offering contextual information that support agricultural analysis and planning. |
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Updated Road Weather Information System (RWIS) Networks |
Synoptic is continuing to enhance our data platform to ensure users have the most reliable, up-to-date, actionable information available. This winter we have been updating and refreshing some of the Department of Transportation networks in our platform to ensure consistency, reliability, and the addition of stations (where applicable). These data are essential to monitor and use for road safety. The state networks we’ve recently updated include: - Ohio Department of Transportation
- Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
- Michigan Department of Transportation
- Missouri Department of Transportation
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The USGS Hydro Network has been updated in the Synoptic platform, supporting recent changes from the provider and expanding the available dataset. We work closely with our data providers to ensure networks are consistent, reliable, and available for all users.
The refresh incorporates more than 20 additional variables and has resulted in 737 new active stations. These additions expand the scope and continuity of hydrologic observations available on the platform, providing broader insight into water conditions across the U.S. |
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Browse the links below to access helpful tips and documentation for Synoptic's products. |
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Copyright © 2026 Synoptic |
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