Get extra forecasts data

The Get extra forecasts data action retrieves extra forecast data from the National Weather Service that is not returned by the standard weather.get_forecasts action, such as the detailed and short text descriptions.

This is useful when you want an automation or script to display the National Weather Service’s worded forecast, for example a sentence like “50% chance of rain, otherwise partly cloudy with a high of 75°F.”

Targets of the action

This action requires a target. The target is the object of the action. You can point the action at a single entityAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more], a device, an area, a floor, or a label, and Home Assistant will run the action on every matching weather entity behind that target.

• Entity: one specific weather entity, such as weather.living_room.
• Device: every weather entity that belongs to a device.
• Area: every weather entity in a room or area.
• Floor: every weather entity on a floor.
• Label: every weather entity that shares a label.

You can also select different target types in one action. For example, you can add a specific entity and an area as targets in the same action to run the action on both of them at once.

Using this action from the user interface

If you prefer building automations and scripts visually, Home Assistant walks you through this action step by step. You pick what to target, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.

To get the extra forecast data from an automation or a script:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation or script, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. If you’re setting up a new automation, add a trigger in the When section. Scripts don’t need a trigger. They run when something else calls them.
4. In the Then do section, select Add action.
5. From the search box, search for and select National Weather Service (NWS): Get extra forecasts data.
6. Select the weather entity as the target, then choose the Forecast type.
7. Select Save.

Options in the UI

Using this action in YAML

If you work directly in YAML, or you want to know exactly what Home Assistant does under the hood, this section has the technical reference. It lists the field names you use in YAML, their types, and which ones are required.

In YAML, refer to this action as nws.get_forecasts_extra. Because this action returns data, use response_variable to capture the result. A basic example looks like this:

action: nws.get_forecasts_extra
target:
  entity_id: weather.khou
data:
  type: twice_daily
response_variable: weather_forecast

This retrieves the extra forecast data and stores it in the weather_forecast variable.

Options in YAML

Response data

The response is a mapping of the targeted weather entities, each containing a forecast field. The forecast field is a list of forecasted conditions at a given point in time. Each entry can include:

• datetime: The start time of the forecasted conditions.
• short_description: A short description of the weather condition.
• is_daytime: Whether the forecast period is during the day. Only set for twice_daily forecasts.
• detailed_description: A detailed, worded description of the forecast. Only set for twice_daily forecasts.

For a twice_daily forecast, the response looks similar to this:

weather.khou:
  forecast:
    - datetime: "2023-02-17T14:00:00+00:00"
      is_daytime: true
      detailed_description: >-
        50% chance of rain, otherwise partly cloudy with a high of 75°F.
      short_description: "Partly sunny then slight chance showers and thunderstorms"

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Open Developer tools > Actions, search for this action, fill in the fields, and select Perform action. You see what happens on your actual entitiesAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more] without writing a line of YAML.

Still stuck?

The Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the action you’re calling and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.