Waypoint · Public source method
Know the source. Understand the coverage.
See which public source families Waypoint supports, what it selects and how to interpret dates and map locations when evaluating field operations software.
Ten supported source families, with different jobs
Official travel advice, weather warnings, satellite observations and news discovery answer different questions. Their labels and selection limits remain visible instead of implying that every record is a confirmed incident.
| Source and attribution | What Waypoint selects | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| USGS earthquakes | Magnitude 4.5+ earthquakes from the USGS past-30-day feed, with supplied event coordinates and review status. | An earthquake magnitude describes that event. It is not a general travel-risk rating or complete coverage of smaller earthquakes. |
| GDACS disaster alertsAttribution and source terms | Source disaster alerts from the seven-day GDACS feed, including modelled severity and source event periods where supplied. | Modelled severity needs context from the official source and local authorities. A revised or ended event record does not itself confirm an all-clear. |
| UK FCDO travel adviceAttribution and source terms | The official country directory and country advice refreshed in rotating batches of up to 16 pages. Each country retains its own retrieval time. | A directory entry does not establish that its full advice was fetched in the latest batch. Preserve regional qualifications and check the original advice for UK travellers; alert wording is not converted into a universal numerical risk score. |
| GDELT news discoveryAttribution and source terms | Source article links and approximate place mentions. If query APIs fail, a bounded sample from recent 15-minute event exports can supply source links, machine-coded reporting labels and approximate country, region or city locations. | News leads, claims and locations remain unverified. A provider-coded event day or first-seen time is not an exact incident time or the publisher's publication time. This sample is not complete worldwide conflict coverage; reporting volume is not a danger rating. |
| NASA EONET natural eventsAttribution and source terms | A bounded sample of up to 100 open or closed natural events from the past 30 days. Source status, geometry dates and closure status remain separate from retrieval. | Locations are approximate. Polygon footprints remain unmapped rather than acquiring an invented point. An open event is not an official evacuation warning or complete worldwide disaster coverage. |
| NOAA / NWS severe weather | Current official U.S. severe and extreme alerts. Actual alerts and updates are selected; expired, cancelled, test and exercise messages are excluded. | This is a current alert snapshot, without historical backfill or coverage of every weather category. Warning areas are not presented as exact incident points. Expiry is checked again when cached alerts are read. |
| MI5 terrorism threat levelsAttribution and source terms | Current published UK national and Northern Ireland-related terrorism assessments, retained as separate records with source change times where supplied. | A threat assessment is not a reported attack or a numerical travel-risk score. These records have no inferred incident coordinates or historical backfill. |
| Global Affairs Canada travel adviceAttribution and source terms | The current public destination index, including regional and territorial advice. Original advice wording, source update dates and the Canadian traveller context are retained. | Current advice is not a historical incident archive. Regional qualifications remain important; unsupported country mappings and missing coordinates stay unknown, with no invented numerical risk score. |
| NASA FIRMS satellite heat detectionsAttribution and source terms | MODIS observations with source confidence of 80–100% from the latest 24 hours. Selection retains one latest observation per approximate 5 km cell, up to 1,000 cells worldwide. | Sensor pixels are approximately 1 km or larger. Heat can be industrial or agricultural; a detection does not establish a wildfire, perimeter, danger rating or evacuation warning. Source observation time stays separate from retrieval, and there is no historical backfill. |
| EUMETNET – MeteoAlarmAttribution and source terms | Official public warnings for the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands and Belgium. Original issue, onset and expiry times, warning wording and source links are retained. | Expired, cancelled, exercise and private records are excluded. Warnings more than ten minutes old since retrieval are withheld. Supplied warning polygons can yield approximate warning-area centres; these are not incident locations. Source delays are possible: check MeteoAlarm and the participating National Meteorological Service for current official alert levels. |
A refresh schedule and a successful delivery are separate
Most source families are due for refresh every 30 minutes. MeteoAlarm is due every five minutes while the workspace requests intelligence; unattended refreshes also use the 30-minute schedule. These are scheduling rules, not guaranteed delivery intervals. Availability, failed requests and partial results can leave an earlier successful snapshot in use.
A failed refresh retains earlier records with their original retrieval information. Current U.S. and MeteoAlarm warnings are also checked for expiry. MeteoAlarm warnings more than ten minutes old since retrieval are withheld, even if a previous snapshot exists. An empty, delayed or unavailable source never establishes an all-clear.
Read the source status and coverage note alongside the records. FCDO country pages refresh in batches; a country directory can be broader than the advice pages retrieved recently. GDELT fallback records can be available while its full query service remains unavailable. Neither case establishes comprehensive coverage.
Five dates that can describe different things
- Event or observation time
- When the source says an event or observation occurred. Some records supply only a day; Waypoint does not invent an exact event clock.
- Publication or update time
- A date supplied by the source for its publication or revision. It is separate from the time Waypoint fetched that record.
- Provider first-seen or VCMP first-observed time
- When a provider first recorded a lead, or when Waypoint first observed it. Neither establishes the original article's publication time or the event's start.
- Retrieval time
- When Waypoint obtained the source record. A recent retrieval does not mean the underlying event just happened. Country advice and individual warning records retain their own retrieval times.
- Last complete successful refresh
- When the source completed a successful refresh. A partial result or GDELT fallback can supply some records while the last complete refresh remains older; inspect the coverage and warning together.
A map marker has the precision of its source
Some sources supply event coordinates. News leads may identify only a mentioned place, country, region or city. A warning can describe an area whose displayed centre is approximate. These locations have different meanings; missing coordinates stay unknown instead of acquiring an invented point.
A grid reference or a more detailed map does not improve the underlying source accuracy. Compare the location label and precision with the official record before using a point in a journey review. A voluntary team check-in is separate from public intelligence and records the location last supplied by that person.
Bring one source question to your demo
Choose a country and source category. Open one record, compare its original source and dates, inspect its map precision, then check the source status and delivered coverage. Record any unknown or partial result before agreeing what your team needs.