Weather Command Center: live safety weather for every stop on your route, built on the published live-event standards (NWS lightning rule, ANSI wind-action tiers, EPA air quality, official wildfire + evacuation feeds). Not guesswork.
THE FOUR RISK COLORS (the dot on each show, and the count chips up top):
• CLEAR (green): nothing actionable.
• WATCH (teal): keep an eye on it: gusts building (20+ mph), storms in the forecast, rain likely within the hour, a wildfire 25–50 mi out, or a Level 1 "Ready" evacuation.
• WARNING (amber): act now: wind-action winds (25+ mph), an NWS warning, unhealthy air (AQI 151+), a wildfire within 25 mi, or a Level 2 "Set" / "Warning" evacuation.
• STOP-SHOW RISK (red): the show is in question: stop-show winds (40+ mph), tornado/hurricane, a wildfire within 10 mi, or a Level 3 "Go" / "Order" evacuation.
THE GAUGES (the tiles under a venue's map). Five are always there: Temp, Wind/gusts, Peak gust (next 6h), Rain (next hour), Humidity. Three more only appear when they matter, so a clear day stays uncluttered:
• Air (AQI): the smoke number. Appears wherever there's US coverage.
• Fire: miles to the nearest active wildfire. Only shows inside 50 mi, or reads "Red Flag" if a fire-weather alert is up.
• Evacuation: the live evac status for the venue's zone (Oregon + California only. See below).
AIR QUALITY: THE ONE NUMBER TO KNOW: AQI 151. The scale runs 0–500. The bands: 0–50 Good, 51–100 Moderate, 101–150 Unhealthy for sensitive groups (asthma, older, pregnant, first caution), 151–200 Unhealthy (the line, schools move kids indoors here, and in California it's the law: at AQI 151 the employer must hand crew N95s), 201–300 Very Unhealthy (cancel outdoor for everyone), 301+ Hazardous (emergency). Wildfire smoke IS PM2.5, so during smoke "the AQI" and "the smoke level" are the same number. Stock N95s on the truck for Western summer legs.
FIRE DISTANCE TIERS: a mapped wildfire within 50 mi = Watch, within 25 mi = Warning, within 10 mi = Stop-show conversation. Distances are to the nearest edge of the official fire perimeter.
EVACUATION LEVELS: the local system, normalized. The West uses Level 1 "Ready" / Level 2 "Set" / Level 3 "Go"; California uses "Warning" / "Order" instead of numbers:
• Level 1: Ready: danger in the area. Know your exits; shows usually proceed.
• Level 2: Set / Warning: be ready to leave *at a moment's notice*. This is your real trigger to pull the plug on a load-in. A bus + trailer + gear needs lead time you may not get, because officials may not re-notify before it jumps to Go.
• Level 3: Go / Order: leave immediately, don't pack. The show is over.
ATOM pulls the official state feeds for Oregon (numeric levels) and California (Warning/Order). The two states that publish them. Washington and Montana have no statewide feed, so on the Evac map layer we link out to Watch Duty (the app every Western local uses) for those.
THE MAP: four layers (toggle top-right):
• Radar: animated rain radar + the dashed 8-mile lightning ring.
• Fire: official wildfire outlines (red). "None within ~200 mi" badge when it's clear.
• Smoke: NOAA smoke plumes, shaded light / medium / heavy.
• Evac: live evacuation zones, colored Go/Order red · Set/Warning amber · Ready teal (OR/CA).
WHERE THE FORECAST COMES FROM: in the US, highs, lows, rain chances and the hour-by-hour temperatures are the National Weather Service forecast (the official one venues and crews check), for about the next 7 days. Further out, or outside the US, they come from Open-Meteo. If Open-Meteo is down or takes over 10 seconds, US shows use the NWS alone. With the NWS forecast, a day's low is that night's low (the NWS way: "Friday 79, Friday night 46"), the one that matters for the show and load-out. Wind gusts and the sky (sunny, showers, storms) come from the NWS too. Air quality forecasts come from Open-Meteo everywhere.
EACH SHOW IS JUDGED ON ITS OWN DAY. A show later in the week gets that day's forecast: the day's gusts (with the hour they peak, since ATOM doesn't know your show times; before 6 AM it says "overnight into" the day), storms in that day's forecast, that day's air quality forecast, and only the NWS alerts that are in effect that day. Things that only exist right now (the satellite smoke plume, rain in the next hour, a station reading) count for today only. A wildfire distance or evacuation zone on a future show says "(now)" because it is today's status, not a forecast. On the route list, a future show's temperature is that day's forecast high, marked H.
SATELLITE SMOKE is smoke seen from space, often high up. It does not mean the air on the ground is bad, so it never colors a show: it shows as a plain Smoke tile and on the Smoke map. The Air (AQI) number and official alerts are what say the ground air is bad.
THE "NOW" TEMPERATURE is a real thermometer reading when there is one: the nearest National Weather Service station within 15 miles, if it reported in the last 75 minutes (hover the Temp tile to see which station and how long ago). Otherwise it is the forecast's estimate. In mountain valleys on cold mornings the estimate can run 10 degrees warm, which is why the reading wins. Highs, lows and the hour-by-hour are still forecasts.
WHERE THE DATA COMES FROM (all live, all official): NWS (api.weather.gov) for alerts + radar, Open-Meteo for forecast + air quality, NIFC/WFIGS for fire perimeters, NOAA HMS for smoke plumes, and Cal OES + Oregon OEM for evacuations. The 20-minute alert cron pushes the same conditions to the whole tour. ATOM is situational awareness for routing. The official channels (WEA alerts, the fire marshal) are always the last word.
SHARING WITH THE CREW: every show on the board has a "Share this day with crew" button that makes an on-brand weather card (venue, day-read, hi/lo, wind, AQI, alerts) to drop in the group chat. For a whole run: say Thursday through Saturday. Tap Select shows above the route list, check the shows to include, then Share weather report: one combined image with a row per show (venue, hi/lo, rain%, and the real reason behind any warning color). Both share as a real image via the phone's share sheet, or download on desktop.
THE WEATHER BANNER (the live ticker along the bottom of ATOM: temp, sky, wind and gusts, rain chance, air quality, hi/lo, sunrise/sunset, any NWS alert). The TM (or org admin) starts it from the Weather board, on the location selected there. Banner for me shows it on every device you log in on, phone and laptop, and follows whatever you select on the board. Banner for tour shows it on everyone's ATOM on this tour, and stays on the place you started it. Your own banner wins if both are on. Anyone can tap the X to hide the tour banner on their own device; it comes back when the TM starts a new one. Crew can't turn the tour banner on or off; ask your TM. A change can take up to 5 minutes to reach another device, or right away when the app is reopened.
For who makes the go/no-go call and the smoke insurance trap, see Weather: go/no-go and insurance.