Weather Thresholds
Weather thresholds let you tell EquipDash what counts as bad weather for your business — wind above a certain speed, lightning forecast, a temperature that makes a guided ride unsafe — and then sit back. The forecast is checked every 30 minutes; when a threshold breaches, your shop closes for the affected hours, your customers are notified, and the closure reopens itself as soon as the forecast clears.
Works for water sports (wind, waves, lightning), ski / snowboard (snowfall), bike tours and camping (heat, rain, lightning), and charters (wind + swell). Pick the metrics that fit your shop.
Where the forecast comes from
EquipDash pulls forecasts from Open Meteo — a global weather service that aggregates your country's national weather agency (NOAA in the US, BOM in Australia, ECMWF / UKMO in Europe, etc.). Every location with an address (or latitude / longitude) gets a forecast.
- Wind, gusts, temperature, precipitation, snowfall, thunderstorm — checked at every location.
- Wave height, swell, marine advisory — automatically included when the location is on the coast. No toggle needed.
Forecasts refresh every 30 minutes and are scoped per location.
Accessing Weather thresholds
- Click Settings in the sidebar.
- Select Weather thresholds.
The page lists every rule you've created plus an Add rule button at the top right.
Adding a rule
- Click Add rule.
- Choose a preset to fill the form, then tweak — or fill it in yourself.
- Decide what should happen when the forecast crosses your threshold.
- Click Add rule.
Active
Pinned at the top of the drawer. Switch off to pause a rule without deleting it — useful for seasonal rules like "Lightning watch — summer only". Paused rules are ignored by the forecast check.
Quick presets
Five one-click templates fill the form for you:
| Preset | Metric | Operator | Default | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small-craft advisory | Wind speed | > | 18 km/h | Kayak / paddleboard rentals |
| Lightning watch | Thunderstorm | = | yes | Anywhere outdoor |
| High wind | Wind speed | > | 25 km/h | Sail charters, bike tours, ski |
| Heat warning | Temperature | > | 35 °C | Bike tours, walking tours |
| Calm-weekend trigger | Wind speed | < | 10 km/h | Pricing agent — uplift on calm days |
You can edit a preset after applying it.
Label (optional)
A name you'll recognize later — "Small-craft advisory", "Lightning watch", "Calm-weekend trigger".
Applies to
Choose which products or experiences this rule guards:
- All products — every rental you sell.
- All experiences — every experience you run.
- All products & all experiences — covers everything.
- Specific product categories — pick one or more categories (chip picker appears).
- Specific products — pick individual products.
- Specific experience categories — pick experience categories.
- Specific experiences — pick individual experiences.
So a rule like "Wind > 25 km/h" can apply to just your kayaks (specific category) while a separate "Heat > 38 °C" rule applies to all your guided bike tours. Closures only block the bookings the rule actually covers.
Location
For multi-location accounts, choose a specific site or leave on All locations. Rules scoped to one location only fire when that site's forecast breaches.
Metric, Operator, Threshold value
The full metric list:
| Metric | Unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Wind speed | km/h or mph | 10-minute average |
| Wind gust | km/h or mph | Peak gusts |
| Precipitation | mm or in | Hourly rainfall |
| Thunderstorm | yes / no | Lightning risk |
| Temperature | °C or °F | Pick the unit per rule |
| Wave height | m or ft | Coastal locations only |
| Swell height | m or ft | Coastal locations only |
| Marine advisory | yes / no | Coastal locations — combined wave + wind |
| Snowfall | cm or in | Ski + winter |
Units are shown in your locale — switch between metric and imperial under Settings → Localization. Temperature has a per-rule °C / °F toggle so you can override.
Operators:
- Greater than (
>) — "wind > 25 km/h". Most common. - Less than (
<) — "wind < 10 km/h on a weekend" — fires your calm-weekend pricing agent. - Equal (
=) — automatic for yes/no metrics.
Look ahead
How far into the future to check the forecast — between 1 and 72 hours. The default 18 hours catches tomorrow morning's bookings. Shorten for "next morning only"; lengthen for 2-day lead time.
Auto-close when this rule breaches
The most important toggle. When ON:
- The forecast is checked every 30 minutes.
- The moment the threshold is breached, a closure is created automatically for the affected hours — blocking new bookings at the affected location.
- A yellow "Closed by weather" banner appears on your dashboard until the forecast clears.
- The closure reopens itself as soon as the forecast drops back below your threshold.
When OFF:
- You still get a heads-up email with a one-click Close shop now button, and the dashboard shows the same option.
- Nothing closes automatically — you decide.
- If you click Close shop now, the closure is created for the breach window and behaves identically to the auto-close path.
Default ON for new rules.
Notify affected customers
When this is ON (default), the moment a closure lands on top of an existing booking, that customer gets:
- An email explaining their booking is affected by weather, with a one-click reschedule link.
- An SMS (if their phone number is on file).
- The reschedule link bypasses your usual minimum-notice requirement and waives any fee — your customer can pick any future slot, no questions asked. They can also do nothing — if the forecast clears, their booking stands.
You also get a summary email: "We notified N customers about the closure at Main Beach Shop".
Turn OFF only if you'd rather phone customers yourself.
What you see when the forecast breaches
Three states show on your dashboard depending on the rule's settings and where the breach window sits:
"Closed by weather" (yellow banner, no buttons)
The shop is currently shut for weather. Auto-reopens when the forecast clears. Nothing to do.
"Bad weather forecast" (yellow banner, Close shop now + ✕ Dismiss)
The forecast crossed your threshold but auto-close is OFF, OR the breach window hasn't started yet. Click Close shop now to create the closure, or ✕ to dismiss.
"Weather forecast" (blue heads-up)
Auto-close is ON and a closure will activate later when the breach actually starts. Pure information — nothing to do.
When the forecast clears
The forecast check runs every 30 minutes. When the next check sees the forecast back below your threshold:
- The rule's "breaching" state is reset, so it can fire again on the next bad-weather window.
- Any active auto-close closure is automatically reopened:
- If the breach window hadn't started yet → the closure is removed entirely.
- If you're mid-window → the closure end is shortened to now, so future hours become bookable immediately.
- If the breach window has already passed → no change (the closure ran its natural course).
- The dashboard banner clears on next refresh.
You don't have to remember to reopen anything.
Customer reschedule — the free, no-notice path
When a closure stamps a booking as weather-affected:
- The customer gets the email + SMS above.
- They click Reschedule your booking (no login required — it's a secure magic link).
- They see a yellow banner: "Your booking was affected by weather. Pick any future slot — no notice required and no fee."
- They pick a new date / slot. Even slots within your normal minimum-notice cutoff are available.
- The booking is updated. The weather-affected flag clears.
If they ignore the email and the forecast actually does clear before their booking, nothing happens — their booking stands.
Multi-location forecasts
Each location needs latitude and longitude to fetch a forecast. When you first turn on Weather thresholds, EquipDash automatically geocodes every location's address. If you see a warning that some locations have no coordinates:
- Go to Settings → Locations.
- Edit the affected location.
- Either confirm the address (the system will retry geocoding) or expand Set coordinates manually to enter latitude / longitude.
You can override coordinates manually any time — useful when the auto-geocoded point lands on the wrong building or for off-grid sites.
You don't need to mark a location as "coastal" or "marine" — EquipDash always tries both endpoints. Coastal locations get wave / swell data automatically; inland locations just don't.
Wiring a rule to an AI agent
Want an AI agent to do something extra on breach — draft custom reschedule emails, post to Slack, update a calendar? In addition to the built-in close / notify behavior:
- Open the agent in Dash Agents → [your agent] → Edit.
- Under Trigger, choose Weather threshold breach.
- Choose Any rule (fire on every breach) or Specific rules (pick which rules trigger this agent).
- Save.
The agent now runs every time the rule breaches. The breach payload (rule, location, time window, affected bookings) is available in its context.
Permissions
Two permission values control access:
weather.view— list rules.weather.manage— full CRUD on rules + use the Close shop now / Dismiss buttons.
By default both are granted to Admin and Manager roles. Staff does not get either — the Settings tab is hidden from them entirely. Override per user under Settings → Team.