Weather Thresholds
Weather thresholds watch the forecast at your locations for conditions such as high wind, lightning or heat. Active rules are checked every 30 minutes. Choose the products or experiences each rule covers and what should happen when the forecast crosses its limit.
Auto-close starts off for new rules. Keep it off to review a warning and choose Close bookings, or turn it on to close the affected availability automatically. Notify affected customers controls messages when a closure affects an existing booking. A weather closure reopens when 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. Each row shows the rule's Label, Location, Condition, Lookahead, and a Status toggle. Flip the Status switch to pause or reactivate a rule on the spot - the change applies straight away and you'll see a green "Saved" confirmation in the corner. The Edit (pencil) and Delete (trash) buttons sit at the end of each row.
Adding a rule
- Click Add rule. A drawer slides in from the right.
- 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 at the bottom of the drawer to save it. (When you reopen an existing rule, this button reads Update rule.)
Unlike the quick Status toggle in the list, changes inside the drawer aren't saved until you click Add rule / Update rule - use Cancel to back out without saving.
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. This is the same on/off state as the Status toggle in the rules list - flip it in either place.
Quick presets
Five one-click templates fill the form for you:
| Preset | Metric | Operator | Default | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small-craft advisory | Marine advisory, or wind speed | = / > | yes / 40 km/h (25 mph) | Boats, kayaks and paddleboards on open water |
| Lightning watch | Thunderstorm | = | yes | Anywhere outdoor |
| High wind | Wind speed | > | 50 km/h (31 mph) | Sail charters, bike tours, ski |
| Heat warning | Temperature | > | 35 °C (95 °F) | Bike tours, walking tours |
| Calm-weekend trigger | Wind speed | < | 10 km/h (6 mph) | Pricing bot - uplift on calm days |
Values show in your shop's own units. Small-craft advisory watches the marine advisory when the rule's location uses the marine forecast (every location, for a rule on all locations). Anywhere else it watches wind over 22 knots, where the US advisory starts.
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. A new rule starts on what your shop sells: all experiences, all products, or both.
- 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 - gusts of 40 km/h (25 mph) or waves of 1.2 m (4 ft) |
| 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 bot. - 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.
Rules only look at the hours your shop is open, so an overnight dip while you're closed never fires one.
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, Offer to close on my dashboard decides what happens:
- On (the default for new rules): you get a heads-up email with a one-click close button, and the dashboard shows the same option. Nothing closes until you say yes.
- Off: the rule only runs your bots. No banner, no email, nothing offers to close. Use this for a rule like the Calm-weekend trigger, which feeds a pricing bot.
Auto-close is OFF 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 bookings + ✕ Dismiss)
The forecast crossed your threshold, auto-close is OFF and Offer to close on my dashboard is ON. The banner names the rule and its line in your own units, for example "Strong gusts (Wind gust > 25 mph) at Main Beach, Sun 3:00 PM - 10:00 PM".
Click Close bookings and a short question shows what it will do before anything changes: the location, the hours, and how many existing bookings fall in them. Click Close bookings again to confirm, or Cancel. Click ✕ to dismiss the warning.
Once its hours have passed, the warning goes away by itself. The button in the email then opens a page saying These hours have passed, and nothing closes.
"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.
Running a bot when a rule breaks
Want a bot to do something extra when a rule breaks - draft reschedule emails, list who is booked, note the bookings? In addition to the built-in close / notify behavior:
- Open the bot from Dash AI > Bots and click Change when.
- Under It runs, choose When the weather turns.
- Under Which rule, choose Any weather rule you have on, or Only the ones I pick and tick the rules. You can also make a new rule right there under New rule and click Add rule.
- Click Save when it runs.
The bot now runs every time the rule breaks. It knows which rule fired, where, over what hours, and which bookings are affected.
Permissions
Two permission values control access:
weather.view- list rules.weather.manage- full CRUD on rules + use the Close bookings / 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.