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Accurate local times, tolerant rule matching, and more life-safety alerts

LMKwhen Team
Product updates

Four improvements to how alerts read and when they reach you.

Alert times now show the issuing office's local time​

Every alert tells you how long the hazard is in effect, and that time is now labeled in the local time of the National Weather Service office that issued it, matching the wording in the official product itself.

Two places this was previously wrong:

  • Arizona alerts showed "PDT" through the summer. Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, so they now correctly show MST year round.
  • Puerto Rico alerts showed "EDT" from spring through fall. They now correctly show AST.

If you have locations in either place, validity times were labeled an hour off from what the official alert said. They now agree.

Rules match a product even when the name is spelled differently​

The Weather Service occasionally issues the same product under a slightly different name or capitalization. A rule built on the standard name used to quietly miss those issuances, with no indication anything had been skipped.

Rules now match all known variant forms of a product automatically. Nothing to change on your end, and no rule needs rebuilding. Alert history shows the standard name, so past and future alerts for the same product read consistently.

More life-safety alerts reach you at your monthly SMS limit​

A small set of the most urgent alerts is delivered by text even after an organization reaches its monthly SMS limit. That set now covers 15 more event types:

  • Evacuation and shelter in place orders
  • Tsunami advisories (tsunami warnings were already covered)
  • Volcano, ashfall, and avalanche warnings
  • Earthquake warnings
  • Hazardous materials, radiological hazard, and nuclear power plant warnings
  • Extreme heat warnings
  • Typhoon warnings
  • Fire warnings
  • Civil danger and law enforcement warnings

Watches, advisories, and forecast based alerts are unchanged: those still pause at the limit, and a message at the limit tells you so.

One shape on the map for each alert​

When the Weather Service reissues an alert, the map now shows one shape for it instead of stacked duplicates.

Nothing here requires any action. If you want more headroom before non urgent alerts pause, see your plan's SMS allowance on the Billing page.