Weather Alerting Module - Enabling Product Weather Integration and Alert Automation

AtHoc’s Weather Alerts Module for AtHoc IWSAlerts and C2Alerts integrates with the National Weather Service’s Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (NWS/EMWIN) to receive relevant critical information such as weather warnings, watches and forecasts. This information is automatically forwarded to emergency managers who then qualify the threat and activate an emergency notification alert to the broader group of affected personnel.

Other sources of weather information can also be integrated with the Weather Alerts Module, including those from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), FEMA and Department of Homeland Security.

Benefits

• Instant weather-related alerts for targeted personnel – user-defined rules ensure that relevant weather alerts are automatically triggered and sent to targeted personnel, such as emergency managers
• Reduced response time to activate emergency alerts and notify personnel – by removing manual intervention, time is saved by eliciting a prompt response from the emergency managers
• Advance warning to facility personnel to ensure a safe and effective response – thousands of facility personnel can be rapidly notified of the emergency and provided with a personalized suggested course of action
• Message clarity and consistency keep all personnel fully informed – with detailed weather-related data, facility personnel can be targeted with information pertaining to the nature of the emergency, as well as clear and concise instructions on response actions across all communication channels and devices
• Compliance with Federal and DoD Weather Notification Requirements – the ability to monitor and alert personnel to weather threats meets Federal and DoD requirements

Architecture and Deployment

The AtHoc Weather Alerts Module is a network-centric product that monitors feeds from weather sources, such as the National Weather Service. The feeds should be in an industry standard format. Specifically, the WAM uses an out-of-the-box industry standard protocol for emergency communications: CAP (Common Alerting Protocol). The feeds can also come in more generic XML.

The WAM can monitor the content of the messages via multiple sources in real-time. Message fields, such as Title, Body, Urgency, Location, etc., can be compared to pre-defined criteria, as defined by the Operators (i.e. “Urgency = High”, “Title Contains ‘Tornado’”). Upon a match between the incoming message content and the predefined criteria, an automatic alert to pre-designated people will be triggered.

Fig. 1: The Weather Alerts Module integrates with sources of weather information and
automatically alerts targeted personnel