Topic

ActivWeather and Weather Events (US) alert comparison in Visual Command Center (VCC), including differences in severity, geographic coverage, and affected assets.

Description

ActivWeather and the Weather Events (US) feed in Visual Command Center (VCC) both surface National Weather Service (NWS) information, but they use different feeds and spatial models. Understanding how ActivWeather relates to the Weather Events (US) feed, and how both differ from NC4/RIMC analyst events, is essential when reconciling apparent discrepancies in severity and which assets are alerted.

ActivWeather, Weather Events (US), and RIMC/NC4 data sources

VCC uses multiple weather-related inputs with distinct purposes:

• Automated weather feed – Provides meteorological alerts and storms that do not necessarily produce significant operational disruptions. This includes polygon-capable feeds such as Weather & Hazard Alerts (Smart Weather) using NWS alerts.
• Weather Events (US) feed – Ingests NWS alerts for the United States and maps the coordinates and alert information exactly as received from NWS into the platform. VCC does not cross-check this feed against other sources.
• NC4 ActivWeather / RIMC feed – RIMC provides analyst-driven risk events focused on disruptive impacts (for example, large-scale outages or severe damage). NC4 ActivWeather tornado warnings in that ecosystem are issued at the county level; NC4 Risk Center does not use polygon shapes for risk events.

ActivWeather data originates from NWS but should be compared with the Weather Events (US) feed in VCC. The RIMC/NC4 feed is a separate analyst source and may classify severity and geography differently.

Reference for comparing ActivWeather alerts

When comparing ActivWeather alerts in VCC, compare the severity and description with the corresponding NWS-based Weather Events (US) record for the same alert.

Spatial representation and its impact on asset alerting

County-based areas in ActivWeather / NC4

NC4 ActivWeather tornado warnings are county-based. A warning for a county is treated as affecting the entire county, and any asset located within that county is considered impacted and can receive alerts. NC4 Risk Center does not use polygons for these risk events.

Polygon-based areas in Weather Events (US)

The Weather Events (US) feed in VCC uses the actual warning shapes (polygons) supplied by NWS. Assets are marked affected when their location (point or area) falls inside the polygon footprint or projected path. If an asset’s coordinates are outside the polygon, the asset is not marked affected and will not trigger incident notifications, even if it resides in the broader county.

Because both sources ultimately derive their information from NWS but represent the warning area differently (county vs. polygon), the same NWS warning can lead to different alerting behavior:

• An asset in a warned county but outside the NWS polygon may receive an ActivWeather alert but not a Weather Events (US) alert.
• An asset precisely located inside the polygon will be alerted by both ActivWeather and Weather Events (US) if the county and polygon overlap.

Step-by-step process for comparing ActivWeather alerts with Weather Events (US)

1. Identify the corresponding Weather Events (US) record

• Confirm that the Weather Events (US) risk events feed is provisioned and enabled for the organization in VCC so that alerts appear in the Operator/Admin consoles.
• Locate the Weather Events (US) alert for the same time period and hazard type as the ActivWeather alert under the Risk Events panel.

2. Compare severity fields

• Review the severity field on the ActivWeather alert.
• Review the severity field on the corresponding Weather Events (US) alert, which reflects the NWS feed as ingested by VCC.
• Note any differences, such as ActivWeather listing Severe while Weather Events (US) indicates a lower severity aligned with NWS metadata.

3. Compare narrative / WHAT description text

• Open the full description on the ActivWeather alert and locate the narrative or WHAT section (for example, text describing impacts such as flooding or wind).
• Open the Weather Events (US) alert and read the corresponding description/WHAT text, which VCC posts as received from NWS.
• Evaluate whether the narrative aligns with the severity. For instance, if the description states “Minor flooding is occurring and minor flooding is forecast” but the severity field on ActivWeather reads Severe, document the difference for further investigation.

If the Weather Events (US) alert’s severity and narrative align while the ActivWeather severity differs from the described impacts, document the difference between the ActivWeather severity and the corresponding Weather Events (US) record.

4. Compare affected area footprints

• For the Weather Events (US) alert, open the event in VCC and view the polygon or shape on the map. Confirm that the coordinates and footprint mirror the NWS warning polygon.
• For the corresponding ActivWeather/NC4 event, verify the county referenced by the warning and understand that the entire county is treated as affected.
• Assess whether differences between a county boundary and the NWS polygon explain why certain assets received ActivWeather alerts but did not appear as affected under Weather Events (US).

5. Verify asset locations against the Weather Events (US) polygon

• Open the asset in VCC and confirm its configured location (address or latitude/longitude).
• Check whether that location lies inside the Weather Events (US) polygon on the map. If the asset is outside the polygon, it will not be marked affected by the Weather Events (US) alert, even if the ActivWeather county-level warning includes that asset.
• If necessary, correct asset coordinates or adjust alerting/geofencing configuration so that future polygon-based alerting aligns with operational expectations.

Understanding apparent mismatches in severity and classifications

Several factors can produce apparent mismatches when comparing ActivWeather alerts with Weather Events (US) and NC4/RIMC events:

• Different source roles – Weather Events (US) reflects NWS alert data as ingested by VCC.

  RIMC/NC4 analyst events emphasize disruptive impacts and may classify severity differently from NWS, even when referencing the same storm.

• County vs. polygon representation – ActivWeather treats entire counties as affected; Weather Events (US) uses polygons. An asset near a county border but outside the polygon may be counted as affected by ActivWeather but not by Weather Events (US).
• Severity differences – When the narrative describes minor impacts while severity is set to a high level in ActivWeather, compare the same record in Weather Events (US) to identify differences between the severity values.

Because VCC posts NWS coordinates and alert content as received, use the corresponding Weather Events (US) entry when comparing the NWS coordinates, severity, description, and affected area with an ActivWeather alert.

When further investigation is needed

If the discrepancy cannot be explained after comparing severity, narrative text, and spatial footprints between ActivWeather and Weather Events (US), gather the following information for further investigation.

• Include the VCC risk event ID by opening the weather alert in VCC and copying the event identifier from the browser URL, or by exporting the risk event.
• Provide the relevant organization details and read-only access, if requested by Everbridge Support, so that the event record can be investigated.

These items help clarify whether an issue originates in feed ingestion, mapping, or the way a particular alert was labeled or displayed.