Documentation
Set up alerts for the places you care about, wire WxAlerts into whatever you already run, and read straight from the alert and lightning feeds. Spotted something wrong or missing on a page? Tell us in Discord and it gets fixed.
/
Getting started
Start hereWhat WxAlerts sends you, where it gets it, and the fastest way to get a warning on your own phone.Saved places and alert rulesA saved place is a location you picked from the gazetteer. A rule decides which alerts over it reach which of your channels.Alerts on iPhone without the appAdd WxAlerts to your iPhone's Home Screen and get warnings for your saved places as notifications, with a free account and no app.
Accounts
Account typesPersonal, Spotter, Meteorologist and EOC accounts, what each one can do, and how you get it.PersonalThe account every WxAlerts user starts with.SpotterHow the spotter exam grants the Spotter type, what spotters can do, and how certification stays current.MeteorologistWho qualifies for a meteorologist account, how it is granted, and what meteorologists can do with spotter reports.EOCWho qualifies for an EOC account, how a request is reviewed, and relaying reports for spotters on your net.
Storm analysis
What WXA/SA isStorm analysis - every convective cell in the country tracked, scored and projected forward every two minutes, with the rotation inside it tracked as its own object.Reading the mapTurning the storm cells layer on, and what the cell, the two lines and the two cones each mean once it is.NotificationsThe episode model - one weather event as one person experiences it - and how many times a single storm is allowed to wake you.Level II radarThe whole volume scan rather than a flattened picture of it - what Level II carries, why the web never draws it, and the debris badge it is the only path to.
Storm analysis · under the hood
DetectionWhere a storm object comes from, what its four hazard readings mean, and what each notification band is worth.TrackingHow a storm keeps one identity across merges and splits, how its motion is measured, why it only alerts once, and how the cone ahead of it is built.Rotation detectionVelocity couplets tracked as objects in their own right - how they are found, what has to be true before one can alert, and what a located rotation adds that a storm cell cannot.AccuracyHow early the alerts are, what they claim, where the system cannot see, and what happens when the feed falls behind.
Spotter reports
Spotter reportsGround truth from people who were there - how a report is filed, how it is scored, and where it goes.The spotter placefileGround-truth spotter reports in GRLevel3, GR2Analyst and GREarth. One URL, no account, refreshes itself every two minutes.Personal placefile keys for meteorologistsA personal key for the spotter placefile in GRLevelX, and how to mark a report you hovered.
Weather stations
Why put a station on CWOPA backyard weather station that reports to CWOP lands in NOAA's MADIS, in front of forecasters, and in the analysis models, closing the 50 km gap between airports down to a few km.Getting an IDRegister for a free CWOP ID, understand the three different identifiers the program will issue you, and get the passcode question right the first time.The APRS weather packetThe wire format field by field, covering data type identifiers, the fixed-width weather fields, timestamps, the APRS-IS login handshake, and worked examples you can decode by hand.From a station you already ownThe fast path, with a Davis, Ecowitt or Ambient station, a Raspberry Pi running WeeWX or CumulusMX, and you are on CWOP in an afternoon.One-command SDR to APRS installerTurn a Raspberry Pi and a $30 RTL-SDR dongle into an APRS-IS weather beacon for the 433 MHz station already in your yard. One command, a few questions, and your callsign is on aprs.fi.On the air with RF APRSFor licensed hams, covering how to beacon weather on 144.390 MHz with Direwolf or a hardware TNC, plus antennas, grounding, duty cycle and a solar power budget.Building one from scratchSensor selection, the firmware details that decide whether your data is any good, pressure reduction, parts lists by budget, and the siting standards to document honestly.AS3935 lightning detectionConfiguring, calibrating and interfacing the Franklin lightning sensor, covering what it can honestly tell you, how to get the data off a station when APRS has no field for it, and where the safety line sits.Install, commission and maintainMounting and grounding, orienting and calibrating, the validation tools that tell you whether your data is trusted, the MADIS QC flags, and the maintenance that keeps a station honest for years.Your station on WxAlertsWhat happens to your observations once they reach us, and how CWOP data is positioned, weighted against ASOS, checked against its neighbors, and where to find your own station on the site.
Home Assistant
Home AssistantStorm cell and NWS alert sensors for every place on your WxAlerts account, pushed into Home Assistant. Add the integration, sign in, done.Entities and eventsThe sensors each place gets, their attributes, the account device, and the wxalerts_storm_cell, wxalerts_alert and wxalerts_hazard events.AutomationsYAML examples for storm cells approaching and life-safety warnings, plus a dashboard card for live alerts.MQTT topicsYour account's places, storm cells and feed status as retained MQTT topics, for Node-RED or any MQTT client.Upgrading from 0.xWhat changes in WxAlerts for Home Assistant 1.0, what is removed on upgrade, and how to repoint your automations.TroubleshootingSign in problems, the instance limit, the Free plan, no devices, and a feed that looks offline.
MeshMonitor
MeshMonitorBridge NWS watches and warnings onto a Meshtastic or MeshCore mesh through a MeshMonitor instance you already run.Configuration referenceEvery key in wxalerts.yml, covering counties, delivery limits, the rule language, and the message templates.What it decides to sendThe decision path for one alert, why repeats are suppressed, and how the airtime budget rations an outbreak.Monitoring and troubleshootingThe health and metrics endpoints, the two signals worth alerting on, and what to check when an alert never arrives.
API
REST APIHow the WxAlerts REST API works, what needs a key, the rate limits, the terms, and an index of every route.API keysKeyed access to the REST API under /v1, with per-key limits and usage you can see.AlertsActive NWS watches, warnings and advisories at a point, in a box, ranked, or framed for you, plus ended alerts for a radar loop and the storm cell behind a warning.StatisticsLive counts of active alerts and GLM lightning, how fast each NWS alert feed delivers, and daily lightning totals in any time zone.SPC outlooksThe Storm Prediction Center's convective outlooks as GeoJSON in SPC's own colors, with a summary that tells no risk from no data.Weather APIMeasured conditions from the nearest station plus a seven-day forecast, in one small response built for a screen.Forecast APIEvery field the models publish for a point, NBM to about eleven days and the HRRR nowcast, with optional severe weather parameters and upper air.Point soundingsThe full HRRR column for any point in the CONUS, every 25 hPa from 1000 to 50 hPa plus the surface, for every hour of the newest run, as JSON.Raw model dataRaw NBM, HRRR and RRFS output at any point, one model per call, only the hours and fields you ask for. By arrangement.ObservationsMeasured surface conditions at a point with every field credited to its own station, plus the stations themselves, their latest readings and their recent history.Sunrise and sunset outlookEvery sunrise and sunset of the next five days at a point, scored twice, for a colourful sky and for a clear view of the sun.Low visibilityFog, marine fog and smoke as polygons by visibility category, every 15 minutes, with a confidence, a cause and the sources behind each area. Plus everything known at a single point.Storm cellsThe storm cells ProbSevere is tracking, their rotations, where each has been, where it is headed and how sure, as GeoJSON and JSON.LightningRecent GOES-19 GLM lightning flashes in a box, for filling in what a live MQTT client missed before it connected.Local storm reportsOfficial NWS local storm reports, the tornadoes, hail, wind damage and flooding offices confirm, filtered by time, box, category, state and office.Tropical cyclonesActive tropical cyclones from the National Hurricane Center, with forecast track, cone, coastal watches and warnings, model guidance, the seven-day formation outlook, and which storms reach a given point.Winter weatherThe Weather Prediction Center's Winter Storm Severity Index, snow and freezing rain probabilities, and Day 3 to 7 winter hazards, at a point or as GeoJSON for a map.MQTT alerts feedLive NWS hazards over MQTT-on-WebSocket, retained per hazard, tombstoned when they end, and filed by both issuing office and SAME code.MQTT lightning feedLive GLM flashes over MQTT-on-WebSocket, with a geohash topic tree that doubles as the spatial index.