Field Ops Risk Briefing: Weather & GPS Conditions

A go/no-go risk briefing for outdoor and field operations in the U.S.: the weather forecast, active weather alerts, and GPS and radio conditions for each work site, in one row. For survey and precision agriculture crews, drone operators, utility and remote field teams, and anyone planning work that depends on both the weather and reliable GPS or HF radio.

What you get

One briefing per location:

• The National Weather Service forecast for the coming periods
• Any active weather alerts for that spot
• Current space weather: the Kp index (geomagnetic storm level, which can degrade GPS accuracy), the radio blackout level for HF radio, and how far south the aurora is visible

Who this is for

• Survey and precision agriculture teams whose GPS accuracy suffers during geomagnetic storms.
• Drone and UAV operators planning flights around both storms and GPS conditions.
• Utility, aviation and remote crews on HF radio checking for radio blackouts.
• Field service managers deciding whether to send crews out.

Input

{
  "locations": [
    { "label": "Austin, TX", "latitude": 30.2672, "longitude": -97.7431 }
  ],
  "forecastPeriods": 4
}

Field	Type	Description
locations	array	{ "label": "optional name", "latitude": ..., "longitude": ... }. US locations only — NWS coverage.
forecastPeriods	integer (default 4)	How many ~12-hour NWS forecast periods to include (4 ≈ next 2 days).

Output

One record per location:

{
  "label": "Fairbanks, AK",
  "latitude": 64.8378,
  "longitude": -147.7164,
  "weather": {
    "city": "Fairbanks",
    "state": "AK",
    "timeZone": "America/Anchorage",
    "forecastPeriods": [{ "name": "Tonight", "temperature": 51, "shortForecast": "Isolated Rain Showers", "...": "..." }],
    "activeAlerts": []
  },
  "spaceWeather": {
    "kpIndex": 1.67,
    "auroraVisibleLatitude": 62.4,
    "radioBlackout": { "xrayFlux": 3.74e-7, "rScale": "R0", "rScaleDescription": "No radio blackout" },
    "observedAt": "2026-08-08T03:00:00"
  },
  "briefedAt": "2026-08-08T07:43:50.308Z"
}

spaceWeather is the same snapshot on every location in a run — it's not a per-location measurement, current conditions are shared globally. Compare it against a location's latitude yourself (as above: Fairbanks at 64.8°N is above the 62.4° aurora viewline, so aurora is plausible there tonight).

Locations that can't be checked still get a row, with "status": "error" and an error saying why, and they aren't charged. That covers points outside the United States and its territories (the National Weather Service only covers the US) and coordinates that aren't numbers. Coordinates written as text, like "30.2672", work. Every other row has "status": "ok".

How it works

Two official, keyless US-government JSON APIs, no scraping, no proxy:

• Weather/alerts: api.weather.gov (National Weather Service)
• Space weather: services.swpc.noaa.gov (NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center) — Kp index and the 0.1-0.8nm GOES X-ray channel, classified into NOAA's own published R-scale

Space weather is fetched once per run and attached to every location record — it's identical for everyone regardless of location, so there's no reason to refetch it per location.

Related products

Need just one signal instead of the combined briefing?

• US Weather Forecast & Alerts API (NWS): NWS forecast/alerts only, per location
• Space Weather Alerts: Kp/radio-blackout/aurora/NOAA alerts only, global snapshot

Pricing note

Billed per location briefed — the shared space-weather fetch doesn't add cost per location, so briefing 10 locations costs the same as briefing 1 for the space-weather portion. Locations that come back with an error aren't charged.