# US Weather Alerts API - Active NWS Severe Storm Warnings (`neverempty/us-weather-alerts`) Actor

Active severe weather alerts, warnings and watches from NOAA / the US National Weather Service. Filter by state, coordinates, severity or event type. When an area has no active alerts it says so in a row you can read, instead of returning nothing and leaving you to guess.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/neverempty/us-weather-alerts.md
- **Developed by:** [NeverEmpty](https://apify.com/neverempty) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Developer tools, MCP servers
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$8.00 / 1,000 alerts

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## US Weather Alerts API - Active NWS Severe Storm Warnings

Active severe weather alerts from the **US National Weather Service**, straight from `api.weather.gov`. No scraping, no HTML parsing, no browser.

Ask for the whole country, a state, or a single point on the map. Filter by severity, urgency, or event name.

### What you get

One row per active alert:

| Field | |
|---|---|
| `event` | `Tornado Warning`, `Heat Advisory`, `Flood Watch`, … as NWS names it |
| `severity` | `Extreme` / `Severe` / `Moderate` / `Minor` / `Unknown` |
| `urgency` | `Immediate` / `Expected` / `Future` / `Past` / `Unknown` |
| `certainty` | `Observed` / `Likely` / `Possible` / `Unlikely` / `Unknown` |
| `headline` / `description` / `instruction` | the text NWS issued, unedited |
| `areaDesc` | the counties and zones the alert covers |
| `onset` / `expires` / `ends` / `effective` / `sent` | ISO timestamps |
| `senderName` | which NWS office issued it |
| `status` / `messageType` / `category` / `response` | the CAP fields |
| `alertId` / `web` | the alert's identifier and its page |
| `scope` / `scopeKind` / `checkedAt` | which input produced this row, and when |

### "No alerts" is an answer, not an error

Most of the time, most places have nothing active. When that happens this Actor writes **a row saying so**:

```json
{ "scope": "VT", "ok": true, "alertCount": 0,
  "note": "No active alerts for this area right now. This is a valid result, not an error.",
  "checkedAt": "2026-08-30T08:00:00.000Z" }
```

That row is **not charged**. It exists so that a scheduled run which finds nothing is distinguishable from a run that failed — which matters a lot when you are alerting off this data and silence is ambiguous.

Likewise, an input that cannot be read (`"Tokyo"`, `"ZZ"`) produces a row explaining exactly that, and **no request is sent to NWS**.

### Input

```json
{
  "areas": ["US", "CA", "TX", "38.89,-77.03"],
  "severity": ["Extreme", "Severe"],
  "urgency": [],
  "event": [],
  "maxRetries": 3
}
```

| Input | |
|---|---|
| `areas` | `US` for nationwide, a two-letter state or territory code (`CA`, `TX`, `PR`, `GU`), or `"lat,lon"`. Mix them. |
| `severity` | Keep only these. Empty = all. |
| `urgency` | Keep only these. Empty = all. |
| `event` | Keep only these event names, spelled as NWS spells them. Empty = all. |
| `maxRetries` | Retries when NWS rate-limits or has an outage. |

Measured on 2026-08-30: `US` returned 269 active alerts, `CA` 4, `TX` 2, and a point in Washington DC 0.

### Billing

Charged per alert delivered. Rows that report zero alerts, and rows that explain a bad input or an outage, are free. If you set a maximum total charge on the run and it is reached, the run stops and says so in the log and the run status rather than handing you a partial result that looks complete.

### Source and conduct

Data comes from the National Weather Service public API. NWS states that the information is *"open data, free to use for any purpose"* and asks that clients identify themselves with a User-Agent; this Actor sends one that includes a contact URL, so NWS can reach us rather than block us if anything ever looks wrong.

# Actor input Schema

## `areas` (type: `array`):

What to check. Use US for the whole country, a two-letter state or territory code (CA, TX, PR), or a point as "lat,lon" (38.89,-77.03). Mix them freely.

## `severity` (type: `array`):

Keep only these severities. Leave empty for all. NWS values: Extreme, Severe, Moderate, Minor, Unknown.

## `urgency` (type: `array`):

Keep only these urgencies. Leave empty for all. NWS values: Immediate, Expected, Future, Past, Unknown.

## `event` (type: `array`):

Keep only these event names, exactly as NWS writes them, e.g. "Tornado Warning", "Heat Advisory", "Flood Watch". Leave empty for all.

## `maxRetries` (type: `integer`):

How many times to retry an area when NWS rate-limits or has an outage, before writing a row that says why.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "areas": [
    "US"
  ],
  "severity": [],
  "urgency": [],
  "event": [],
  "maxRetries": 3
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All forecast rows produced by this run.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "areas": [
        "US"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("neverempty/us-weather-alerts").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "areas": ["US"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("neverempty/us-weather-alerts").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "areas": [
    "US"
  ]
}' |
apify call neverempty/us-weather-alerts --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,neverempty/us-weather-alerts"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/dqOKzz2up9MH9NHlB/builds/LkVIlxJaVrdlWoAoh/openapi.json