National Weather Service Alerts
Easily add official National Weather Service alerts to your website.
The facts
- Rating
- 3.8★ from 11
- Active installs
- 100+
- Price
- Free
- Last updated
- 8 Feb 2018
- Added
- Nov 2014
- Requires WP
- 3.1
- Tested up to
- WP 4.9.31
- Downloads
- 9,516
Our analysis
AI-assistedThe National Weather Service Alerts plugin allows you to display weather alerts on your WordPress site. It pulls alerts from the National Weather Service based on a specified location, which can be set using a zipcode, city and state, or state and county. The alerts are updated automatically using AJAX based on their severity.
This plugin is suitable for users who want to keep their audience informed about weather conditions in the United States. It includes features such as a shortcode, widget, and a settings page for customising the alerts displayed on the site.
Best for: This plugin suits websites that need to provide weather alerts for users in the United States.
What it does well
- ✓Displays weather alerts from the National Weather Service
- ✓Supports multiple location input methods
- ✓Automatically updates alerts using AJAX
- ✓Includes a Google Map for certain alert types
- ✓Provides a shortcode and widget for easy integration
Where it falls short
- •Only works for locations within the United States
- •Last updated in February 2018, may not be compatible with newer WordPress versions
- •Directory score indicates potential issues or limitations
Verdict
The National Weather Service Alerts plugin offers a straightforward way to display weather alerts, but its age and limited geographical scope may be drawbacks for some users.
From the developer
John Russell's own description of National Weather Service Alerts, lightly tidied.
The National Weather Service Alerts plugin allows you to easily display weather alerts on your website. The
alerts are pulled directly from the National Weather Service (http://alerts.weather.gov) based on the location
that you specify and are then parsed, sorted, and output to your website. The alerts are then automatically updated using
AJAX, based on the severity of the alerts for the specified location. The location can be set by using zipcode,
city and state, or state and county. There is also the option to choose the scope of what alerts to include,
such as alerts only for your county, alerts only for your state, or alerts for the entire United States.
If applicable, a Google Map will be included with polygon overlays to show the affected regions of certain alert
types, such as tornado warnings or flash flood warnings.
Currently the National Weather Service Alerts plugin only works for areas within United States. However, the
plugin expects Atom feeds that use the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) format so in theory any CAP feed could be
used.
Features
- Shortcode
- Widget
- NWS Alerts settings page for adding the Alerts Bar
- Clean html5 markup
- CSS classes that make it easy to override default styles
- Developer API (filters)
Weather Alerts
- Tornado Warning
- Severe Thunderstorm Warning
- Flash Flood Warning
- Flood Warning
- Blizzard Warning
- Winter Storm Warning
- Freeze Warning
- Dust Storm Warning
- High Wind Warning
*The default weather alert types can be modified using the ‘nws_alerts_allowed_alert_types’
and ‘nws_alerts_sort_alert_types’ filter hooks.