The National Weather Service publishes almost everything. Almost none of it is labelled.
Two things live here: a plain-English tour of all 69 endpoints on the public weather API, and a translator for the messages the Senior Duty Meteorologist — the forecaster on watch over the whole national system — posts about how that system is running. Start with what you are trying to do.
What are you trying to do?
Get a forecast for a place →
Turn a latitude and longitude into a day-by-day or hourly forecast. You ask /points where a coordinate falls, and it hands you the forecast for that grid square.
See active alerts and warnings →
Every watch, warning and advisory in effect right now, filterable by state, zone, severity and event type.
Check current conditions →
The latest observation from a station near you — temperature, wind, visibility and what the weather is doing at this moment.
Read a forecast discussion →
The Area Forecast Discussion (AFD) is the forecaster explaining their own reasoning, in prose. It is one of several hundred text bulletins hiding under the JSON.
Follow how NWS itself is running →
The Senior Duty Meteorologist — the forecaster on watch over the national system — posts when a model run slips, a balloon launch is missed or a satellite is moved. We translate those.
Understand how it all fits together →
Coordinates to grid squares to forecasts; which office covers where; why every request needs a User-Agent header. Read once, stop being confused.
NWS operations, right now
All SDM messages →Critical Weather Day
In effect
NWS is holding off on non-essential system changes. This is about NWS’s own systems — not a forecast for your area.
Open operational notices
Nothing outstanding
No unresolved NWS system notices on file. This is about NWS’s own equipment and systems, not the weather where you are.
Satellite sectors
3 active
- GOES-East sector 1 about 70 mi ESE of Washington, DC until
- GOES-West sector 1 Mexico, about 380 mi SW of Mexico City, Mexico until
- GOES-West sector 2 about 65 mi NE of Fresno, CA until
3-day outlook
- Friday Critical...Tropical Cyclone
- Saturday Critical...Tropical Cyclone
- Sunday None
Latest operations messages
All operations messages →Last checked .
If you are writing code
No key. No registration. One header.
Every request is a plain GET against https://api.weather.gov. The only rule:
send a User-Agent that identifies you and gives them a way to make contact.