I have noticed that NWS Weather Alerts aren't available via the REST API until they are active. The expected behavior here would be that they are returned after they are issued.
This is pretty standard behavior with most weather APIs and services as it allows for people to see the alerts in advance of the severe weather.
Are there any plans to modify this behavior and return the weather alerts as they are issued?
I've noticed this too. The precursor Dark Sky API returned weather alerts once they were issued, but Weatherkit isn't returning them until after the event onset time. Was this an intentional change?
I filed a request through the Feedback app prior to my original posting - and just like this post, it hasn't gotten any response from Apple.
This weather alert behavior change, combined with constant instability (401s coming and going), and the other differences (only metric data and loss of summaries to name a couple) have made the experience of switching from Dark Sky very painful.
When you add to it that Apple support won't acknowledge or address any of these things, it becomes insulting to the developers that pay membership fees and put their time into using these services.
I'm still working through transitioning to WeatherKit, but besides this change to when weather alerts are available, I've definitely experienced the regular 401 responses and the lack of summaries on weather alerts (there is no "messages" variable present in weather alerts like the REST docs show).
I've had great results getting help from Apple by using a technical support incident (TSI). Support will try to help resolve the problem, otherwise they may reach out to a responsible engineer and verify if it's a known issue that's being worked on. I'm still rewriting my code and testing with Weatherkit, but if I'm still seeing these types of problems when I'm done that's what I'll try.
Thank you for your feedback on this issue. Weather alerts are now available through WeatherKit when they are issued instead of when they become effective.