Thanks for the input.

Sticking with LWP::UserAgent for the time being, in hope that NWS solves all the issues sometime soon.

I have been using DarkSky for years and there was seldom any issues like this, but that is going away in the future (thanks Apple).

I reported the issues to NWS, and got added to a large support ticket with many other people having similar issues, which confirms it's not me. Have added Retry coding for all the 500's and 502's, and trying to figure out the best way to check and retry when old data is returned, but I'm not sure an immediate retry will help any. Adding some code downstream to not update to new data if out of date and use slightly older (cached) data instead.

It's a nightmare. Getting data for 30 cities is taking almost 2 minutes now from Tier-1 Data Center (files are only about 13KB each). I can get the same from DarkSky in seconds with essentially the same code. OpenWeather's API works for some things, but does not provide some of the forecast wording that DarkSky and NWS provide.

Not many good weather API's left, they all keep going away. AccuWeather is about twice what I am paying for DarkSky, that's my next option but trying to avoid paying that much if I can.

Again thanks for the help and wisdom!

Update from NWS: "Since an upgrade API isn't behaving optimally, the 503 errors are a known issue protecting the application. A fix for the application's database is expected no later than late this summer. We apologize for the inconvenience. This ticket will remain open until the issue is resolved. If anyone would like to be removed from the distribution list, please let us know via reply email. Otherwise, you will remain on the distribution list and updates will be provided when available, perhaps in several weeks. (CJJ)"

So the issues are not going to get fixed anytime soon, so AccuWeather API it is.