Severe Weather Go/No-Go Alert Checker: Events, Sites & Deliveries (NWS)

Give it a list of US coordinates. It returns the forecast, active weather alerts, and location info from the official National Weather Service API : the same data source behind weather.gov, as clean JSON.

Who this is for

A fast go/no-go weather check for anyone making an operational call ahead of time, not a general-purpose weather app:

• Event planners: weddings, festivals, sports, outdoor venues deciding whether to move indoors or reschedule.
• Logistics/delivery dispatch: flagging routes or stops with active severe weather before drivers head out.
• Site & construction managers: checking forecast and alerts before a job-site call.

If you also need GPS/HF-radio propagation conditions on top of this (e.g. for field teams using radios or GPS-dependent equipment), see Field Operations Risk Briefing below: same forecast data, plus space-weather conditions, at a higher per-location price. This actor is the lighter, cheaper option when you just need the weather/alerts signal.

Input

Field	Type	Description
locations	array	{ "label": "optional name", "latitude": 30.2672, "longitude": -97.7431 }
forecastPeriods	integer (default 4)	How many ~12-hour forecast periods to return (4 ≈ next 2 days).

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

US locations only: that's the National Weather Service's coverage area.

Output

One record per location:

{
  "label": "Austin, TX",
  "latitude": 30.2672,
  "longitude": -97.7431,
  "city": "Austin",
  "state": "TX",
  "timeZone": "America/Chicago",
  "forecastPeriods": [
    {
      "name": "Today",
      "temperature": 99,
      "temperatureUnit": "F",
      "precipitationProbability": 8,
      "windSpeed": "0 to 5 mph",
      "windDirection": "S",
      "shortForecast": "Sunny",
      "detailedForecast": "Sunny, with a high near 99. ..."
    }
  ],
  "activeAlerts": [],
  "checkedAt": "2026-08-07T00:00:00.000Z"
}

How it works

Direct calls to api.weather.gov: official NOAA/National Weather Service API, US federal government data (public domain, no non-commercial restriction, no API key). No proxy, no scraping.

Coordinates only, no geocoding built in: NWS's API only accepts latitude/longitude, not place names. Look up coordinates for a city via any map service before running.

Why NWS instead of a global weather API

Global free weather APIs (e.g. Open-Meteo) restrict their free tier to non-commercial use: using one to power a paid actor would violate those terms. NWS is US-government public data with no such restriction, at the cost of US-only coverage.

Related products

• Field Operations Risk Briefing: adds GPS/radio propagation conditions on top of the same NWS forecast data
• Space Weather Alert: solar/geomagnetic conditions, for HF radio and aurora-visibility use cases NWS doesn't cover
• Disaster Declaration Tracker: official FEMA disaster declarations rather than day-to-day forecasts