Reading Dates and Revision Lines on an NWS Directive

The cited NWS Instruction 10-515 displays an instruction number, an ALL-CAPS date, a type-of-issuance line, and a summary-of-revisions line. The cited Series 10 index also includes a rescinded entry. This article reports those displayed fields and dates.

This original record-reading guide is a general reading aid, not cited evidence. It does not depict a source record; the article text and source links provide the facts.

Key points

• Directives are organized into numbered series, such as “1 - Administration & Management” and “100 - External Affairs” (https://www.weather.gov/directives/).
• Each instruction’s own header states its number and an ALL-CAPS effective date, for example “NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE INSTRUCTION 10-515 MAY 16, 2025” (https://www.weather.gov/media/directives/010_pdfs/pd01005015curr.pdf).
• The “SUMMARY OF REVISIONS” line is the currency check: it names the exact prior dated version the current one supersedes.
• A directive’s ALL-CAPS effective date and its digital-signature date are two separate fields and need not be the same date.
• A directive can also be marked rescinded outright, which is a different status from being superseded by a newer dated edition.

Directives are grouped into numbered series

The NWS directives system sorts its instructions into numbered categories. The index lists series such as “1 - Administration & Management” and “100 - External Affairs” (https://www.weather.gov/directives/). A directive’s own number, such as 10-515, places it within one of these series and is the identifier that appears throughout its header and revision history.

Instruction date and number

The cited instruction reads “NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE INSTRUCTION 10-515 MAY 16, 2025.” Its header also names the office of primary responsibility and type of issuance (NWSI 10-515).

Supersedes line

For the cited instruction, the line reads: “SUMMARY OF REVISIONS: This directive supersedes NWSI 10-515, ‘WFO Non-Precipitation Weather Products (NPW) Specification,’ dated November 20, 2024.” (NWSI 10-515)

Rescission is a separate, permanent status

Not every entry in the directives list is superseded by a newer edition — some are rescinded outright and removed from active use. The directives index for series 10 shows this status directly: “10-104 Preparations in Advance of, or During, Disasters OR Major Weather Emergencies - rescinded August 8, 2022” (https://www.weather.gov/directives/010). A rescinded entry is a different status from a superseded one, and the index states the rescission date the same way it states other status information.

Date-field distinction

In the cited instruction, the header shows MAY 16, 2025, while the certifying signature has a May 2, 2025 timestamp (NWSI 10-515). This article does not assign either date a general currency-checking role beyond the cited document.

What this article does not answer

This article only explains how to read a directive’s own header to confirm it is the current, in-force edition. It does not tell you when a resulting product change actually reached your phone, a weather app, or your local broadcaster — that timing question belongs to the NWS Service Change Notice process, a separate record from the directive itself, which is the specification rather than the implementation date. It also does not cover regional supplements, which are listed separately under each instruction and carry their own separate rescission history. And based on the evidence gathered for this piece, only one “Type of Issuance” value — “Unscheduled” — is directly confirmed; this article does not assert the full range of issuance types that may appear across other directives.

Source links

https://www.weather.gov/directives/ https://www.weather.gov/directives/010 https://www.weather.gov/media/directives/010_pdfs/pd01005015curr.pdf