Weather Alert

The Weather Alert feature can be used to help streamline your organization's response to weather conditions by incorporating weather alerts from NOAA/NWS into your alerting processes.

Why not relay every alert to the entire community?

Weather alerts are typically issued for multiple counties or other geographic units. As such, a single alert may comprise a very large list of geographic areas. In some cases, NOAA may issue many alerts in rapid succession as a weather event moves across the country. 

In most cases, simply relaying the raw alert information to your community can be confusing. As these alerts tend to include large areas, they may not always apply to your specific location or the alert itself may be too vague/general for your subscribers. 

Also, you may wish to add information specific to your organization, such as critical URLs, phone numbers, or localized instructions. 

This is where Omnilert Weather Alert can help. 

Omnilert Weather Alert will alert allows you to select group(s) of key subscribers to receive any/all alerts in your vicinity via priority alerts sent to the Omnilert Mobile App (and via Instant App links sent SMS). 

Those key persons can then decide what action is appropriate; they can launch a scenario, send out an alert, or follow other internal procedures as your local policy dictates. 

This guide will help you to configure Omnilert Weather Alert.

 

Weather Alert: Setup & configuration

To configure Weather Alert, go to Priority Alerts  > Weather Alert in the Omnilert administrator portal.

 

Adding Weather Alert locations

To receive weather alerts, you'll need to indicate one or more desired "zones". Omnilert makes this selection process simple by using locations set by you. 

 

Add new location

Locations determine which weather alerts will create priority alerts for your subscribers. You need at least one location setup to use Weather Alert.

To add a new location, click Add new location in the upper right corner of the page. 

• Assign this location a "Location name" for future reference. 
  
  
• Then enter the desired location address in the "Address" section. This can either be a specific mailing address or a postal zip code. This information will be used by Omnilert to pinpoint the NOAA zone to monitor for alerts. Click Find Location to preview the new location as a pin on the map.
  
  

• You can filter alerts by their 'Severity' level to reduce the number of notifications from Weather Alert.

  NOAA lists six possible severity levels: Extreme, Severe, Moderate, Minor, and Unknown.

  By default, all six severity levels are selected for a new location. Simply unselect any severity levels for which you do not wish to receive notifications.
  
  

• Click Add location to save the new location.

The size and shape of weather alert zones are pre-determined by NOAA and not adjustable. Typically, they are counties or other large geographical areas. Entering an accurate address ensures that the map pin is in the correct zone for your location. 

 

Once added, you'll need to link one or more groups to this location to enable alerts on the new location. (See next section.)

 

Manging existing locations

Click on Priority Alert > Weather Alert in the menu to view/edit existing locations. 

A list of available locations will display the name, NOAA Forecast Weather Zone, and "Active" status for each location. 

 

Click on an existing location to view/edit it in more detail. 

 

Filter by Weather Event Type (optional)

Weather Alert notifications can be filtered by modifying an existing weather alert location to filter on "Weather event type". 

 

This filter will allow you to only see alerts that match the event types selected by you. Any/all other event types will be ignored.

 

Modify the "Weather event type" filter on the Details tab of the Weather Alert location.

Select one or more of the available weather event types to engage a filter. Simply click on the field to view a list of types or begin typing the name of an event type to search the list.

If no weather event types are selected, Omnilert Weather Alert will not be filtered on "Weather event type" and all event types will be accepted.

 

Tip: See https://www.weather.gov/lwx/WarningsDefined for a complete list of the various weather event types available from the National Weather Service.

 

Auto-launch a Scenario (optional)

In some cases, it may be useful to automatically launch an Omnilert Scenario for extreme weather events.  This will instruct Omnilert to automatically launch the selected scenario whenever a matching weather event occurs in this location. 

Weather alert data fields can be merged into your scenario action using "Special Text Variables".

To set an automatic scenario,  select the desired scenario in the "Auto launch scenario" setting.

 

Note: The frequency of weather alerts is controlled by the National Weather Service (www.weather.org.) Please be sure to set a proper filter for your automation to prevent sending too many messages to your subscribers.

 

Select the group(s) to receive weather alerts

To receive alerts for a location, one or more Groups of subscribers must first be assigned to the location. 

• Go to the Groups tab. You will see a list of private groups from your Omnilert account. (Public groups cannot receive priority alerts from Weather Alert.)
  
  
• Select one or more groups to receive priority alerts for this location.

 

 

Enable/disable Weather Alert location

You can edit a location to enable/disable its alerts with the "Receive weather alerts for this location" checkbox on the Details tab. 

 

Linking scenarios (optional)

Omnilert Weather Alert is designed to let your team know when alerts are issued for your area. As weather alerts are often issued for a larger geographic area, your team can actively determine which are truly applicable to your specific location. 

As such, you may wish to link one or more Scenarios to the Weather Alert for this location.

This will allow the recipients in the private group(s) to have the option to launch after they review the alert. 

• Go to the Scenarios tab.
  
  
• Select one or more scenarios to present within the Omnilert Mobile App and/or Instant app. This will give the recipient group an option to launch a scenario whenever they receive a Weather Alert for the location. 

Launching a Scenario from a Weather Alert card

Weather Alert will send a notification to your chosen group of subscribers. Those recipients can then choose from the appropriate scenarios if needed. 

This allows your critical response team to review incoming alerts and then selectively alert your organization of inclement when the situation is appropriate. 

If a Scenario has been launched for a given Weather Alert, the Omnilert Mobile App will display a green checkmark on the scenario button and list which recipient launched the Scenario. 

 

Configuring Scenarios for Weather Alert

Scenarios can be a powerful way to notify your organization/campus about weather events by sending texts, sending emails, updating social media and websites, etc. 

If you're unfamiliar with Scenarios, see Creating a Scenario [VIDEO].

Scenario messages are pre-scripted and Omnilert provides text variables that can auto-insert dates, times, and other situational/contextual content into the outgoing alerts. 

 

Special Text Variables

The following text variables can be used to pass information from the Weather Alert system into your Scenario's Actions.

variable	description
{{wa_location_name}}	The text name assigned to this location. This value is set in the Omnilert settings for Weather Alert.
{{wa_headline}}	The 'headline' text from the original alert. This is a description of the weather event. This is typically one or two sentences presented in all-caps.
{{wa_severity}}	The severity of the Weather Alert. Possible values: Extreme Severe Moderate Minor Unknown
{{wa_type}}	The text value for the 'type'. This indicates the kind of alert message. (e.g. 'Blizzard Warning ') For a complete list of NOAA/NWS weather event types, please see: https://alerts.weather.gov/cap/product_list.txt
{{wa_active_until}}	The expiration date/time text content, if available. (Not all alerts will include this information.)
{{wa_affected_areas}}	The list of affected areas for this Weather Alert.  This can be a very long list of counties, cities, or other geographic regions.
{{wa_summary}}	A 'summary' description of the alert. This is typically two or three paragraphs of weather forecast information.
{{wa_instructions}}	The 'instructions' portion of the Weather Alert. This is typically a long-form text describing what steps to take, any precautions, etc.

 

These variables will relay information directly from the original NOAA weather alert message along with your own pre-determined text content, links to local resources, etc.

 

Example Scenario Action

In this illustration, we've created a custom message for a "WEATHER ALERT". This Action message is designed to relay a pertinent weather alert to campus after review by a qualified staff member. 

For example:

The text for this example is listed below:

 

Subject:

WEATHER ALERT: {{wa_location_name}}

Message:

A WEATHER ALERT HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR {{wa_location_name}}. 
HEADLINE: {{wa_headline}}
SEVERITY: {{wa_severity}}
ACTIVE UNTIL: {{wa_active_until}}
----
FROM NOAA:
{{wa_summary}}

====
Visit www.SAMPLE.edu/weather for additional information and updates.

 

The resulting scenario messages would then include your custom content along with select information from the original Weather Alert.  In this case, we're using the 'location name', 'headline', 'severity',  'active until', and 'summary' provided from the priority alert.

This allows your outgoing Scenario message from Omnilert to provide the key information that is most relevant to the recipients within your organization.