NWS Weather Alert Business Impact Monitor

Run daily or on-demand. Pay only for newly seen NWS active weather alerts that match your counties, states, or alert types.

buyer wedge

Built for logistics coordinators, event planners, construction managers, and supply-chain risk teams who need a narrow weather-impact feed—not another bulk alert dump.

why it is different

• signal, not retrieval: unmatched NWS alerts are omitted and free.
• FIPS county matching: exact match against 5-digit FIPS county codes in alert geometry.
• correction-aware: a materially changed source record emits SOURCE_CORRECTION once.
• replay-safe: stable event IDs and provider idempotency keys suppress duplicate charges.
• bounded spend: maxEvents and maxTotalChargeUsd cap each run before charging.
• audit evidence: every row includes the official NWS alert ID, source fingerprint, timestamp, and disclaimer.

price example: four new weather alerts plus one material source correction cost $0.65; unmatched and unchanged alerts cost $0.00.

source and scope

The Actor queries the official NWS active alerts API. No API key, browser, proxy, personal data, or AI inference is required. NWS states that active alerts are updated in real-time and are not maintained as a historical weather record. Accordingly, this Actor is an internal screening aid and emits new or corrected alerts; it does not issue emergency notifications, provide weather forecasting, or claim an alert was escalated or terminated.

matching

At least one watch term is required:

• counties: exact match against 5-digit FIPS county codes in alert geometry
• states: phrase match against state names in alert area descriptions
• alertTypes: phrase match against NWS event types (e.g. Flood Warning, Tornado Warning)

baselineMode=emit_matches returns matching alerts in the initial lookback window. Use silent to establish state without emitting or charging initial matches. Reuse the same watchlistId, settings, and stateStoreName for scheduled monitoring.

output

Paid dataset rows are either:

• NEW_ALERT — $0.15
• SOURCE_CORRECTION — $0.05

Unmatched alerts, unchanged replays, silent baselines, malformed input, and failed source fetches are not paid events. A deterministic run report is stored as REPORT with source window, counts, receipts, state size, and claim scope.

operational note

If the NWS API returns an error or an unexpected response shape, the run fails before state is advanced or events are charged. Event settlement is fail-closed: an ambiguous prior settlement refuses another provider charge.

quick start

Start with a silent baseline so historical alerts do not create paid events, then schedule the identical input daily or on-demand.

{
  "watchlistId": "weather-watch-pacific-nw",
  "counties": ["53033", "53061"],
  "states": ["WA", "OR"],
  "alertTypes": ["Flood Warning", "Winter Storm Watch"],
  "lookbackDays": 7,
  "baselineMode": "silent",
  "maxEvents": 20,
  "maxTotalChargeUsd": 5,
  "stateStoreName": "weather-watch-pacific-nw-state"
}

After the baseline, keep watchlistId, watch terms, and stateStoreName stable. Route returned NEW_ALERT rows to an operations review queue. Confirm every action against the linked NWS source; this feed is deliberately not an emergency notification or weather-forecasting system.

Other focused monitors: FDA food recall matches, drug safety signals, and regulatory rule changes.