Public Alerts of National Weather Service

Enter a location and get a weather forecast of your desired location from the National Weather Service.

Public Alerts of National Weather Service

Severe weather and natural disasters can significantly disrupt operations and put your people in harm’s way. Whether it's thunderstorms, tornadoes, blizzards, extreme heat or cold, floods, wildfires, or earthquakes, the National Weather Service in formates about the current situation. This helps your organization prepare for approaching weather that may impact safety and ongoing operations.

Accurate weather forecasts don't always produce good results. The National Weather Service (NWS) learned this difficult lesson in late April 2011, when a two-day tornado outbreak claimed more than 300 lives in Mississippi, Alabama, and adjacent states.  The average tornado lead time, the time between a NWS warning and the arrival of a tornado at a given location, was over 20 minutes, well above the national average.  However, property damage was in the billions, and what could not be measured was the pain of lost loved ones and lives forever changed.  Traditionally, forecast accuracy has been the measure of NWS success, but April 2011 was a watershed moment for the NWS and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  Success can be measured not only by the accuracy of the predictions, but also by the societal response to those predictions and ultimately the societal outcome.  While not necessarily a new way of thinking, the storm of April 28, 2011, made us all realize that more needs to be done.

National Weather Service’s Commitment to Building a Weather-Ready Nation

The National Weather Service is your first line of defense BEFORE extreme weather events - working 24/7 alongside emergency management officials in your community and in tandem with the U.S. weather industry. The NWS strives to evolve as an agency to fulfill its mission at a higher level than ever before in its nearly 150-year history, always striving to build a weather resilient nation. National Weather Service employees are committed to working with the U.S. weather industry, emergency management, other government agencies, media partners, and ambassadors of a weather-resilient nation to collectively meet the needs of 334 million Americans who rely on all of us to keep them safe.

The National Weather Service (NWS) provides weather, water, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters, and marine areas to protect life and property and promote the national economy. These services include forecasts and observations, warnings, impact-based decision support, and education to create a weather-resilient nation. The ultimate goal is a society that is prepared for and can respond to weather, water, and climate events.

The National Weather Service is responsible for issuing forecasts, observations, and warnings of a variety of weather and water hazards. A "warning" is issued when hazardous weather poses an immediate threat to life or property. However, the process for issuing a warning varies depending on the type of hazard. This is due to the fact that hazards occur over very different time and distance ranges. For example, tornadoes typically last only a few minutes and affect relatively small areas, while snowstorms can last for days over hundreds of square miles.