Weather Triggers: Every Condition You Can Use, With Example Rules

A weather trigger is the condition in a rule that decides when your ads change. In WeatherTrigger, a rule watches the forecast for a location. When its trigger is met, it turns your Meta ad sets on, turns them off, or cuts their daily budget, and it puts them back when the weather clears.

This page lists every condition a rule can use, the time windows it can check, where the weather data comes from, and an example rule for each. The thresholds are starting points, so change them to suit your market and your units.

The nine conditions at a glance

The quick setup covers the common cases in a few clicks. The advanced builder, linked from the bottom of the quick setup, adds the last three conditions and lets you group several conditions together.

Temperature

Set a threshold above or below, in Celsius or Fahrenheit. Thresholds are stored in Celsius either way, so switching the display unit never changes how a rule behaves.

When a rule checks a forecast, “above” compares the day’s maximum and “below” compares the day’s minimum. A rule for “below 5°C in the next three days” fires if any night in those three days is forecast to drop under 5°C.

Starting points from WeatherTrigger’s trade presets:

• HVAC and air con: above 32°C in the next 3 days, ads on
• Heating, boilers and fireplaces: below 5°C in the next 3 days, ads on
• Pools and spas, and solar: above 30°C in the next 3 days, ads on
• Pest control: above 28°C in the next 3 days, ads on

Wind chill, heat index and feels-like temperature

WeatherTrigger uses the air temperature, not wind chill, heat index or “feels like”. If what matters to you is how cold or hot it feels, you can get close by combining two conditions with AND in the advanced builder:

• Wind chill: temperature below 10°C and wind speed above 20 km/h
• Heat index: temperature above 30°C and humidity above 60%

These are approximations, not the official indexes, so check a few days of results against your own sense of the weather before you rely on them.

Rain and snow

A rain trigger can watch either of two things:

• Chance of rain: the forecast probability of rain, as a percentage. The quick setup defaults to 60%.
• Rain amount: forecast rainfall in millimetres. This counts snow as well as rain.

The quick setup starts with chance of rain because forecast amounts tend to shift more between forecast updates, so a millimetre threshold can flip back and forth. Use the amount when only heavy rain matters, like a landscaping crew that can still work in a light shower.

Which time window to pick depends on when your customers act:

• Before the rain: gutter cleaning, chance of rain over 60% in the next 2 days, ads on, and kept on for at least 2 days
• On the day: exterior, window and pressure cleaning, or car detailing, chance of rain over 60% today, budget cut by 30% rather than switched off, so the jobs that still come in keep coming
• Heavy rain only: landscaping and tree work, more than 10 mm today, ads off
• Rain or cold: fences, decks, concrete and painting, chance of rain over 50% or below 5°C today, ads off

For snow on its own, use the snow condition in the advanced builder, or switch on “Also trigger on snow” on a quick setup rain trigger.

Wind, storms and severe weather alerts

• Wind gusts are the peak bursts within the forecast wind. The quick setup’s Storm trigger uses gusts above 60 km/h.
• Severe weather alerts are official warnings issued for the location, as carried by OpenWeather. Switch on “Also trigger on a severe weather alert” and the Storm trigger fires on an alert as well as on gusts. Coverage depends on the national weather service in each country, so check that alerts appear for your area before you rely on them alone.
• Wind speed is the sustained wind, available in the advanced builder. It suits businesses that need wind rather than storms, such as kite and wing-foiling gear or sailing schools.

The roofing and storm repair preset checks the past 24 hours for gusts over 60 km/h or an official alert, turns ads on, and keeps them on for at least 3 days, because homeowners search for repairs after the storm, not during it.

Humidity and cloud cover

Both are percentages and are available in the advanced builder:

• Humidity suits dehumidifiers, mould treatment, hair care and pest control.
• Cloud cover suits solar, outdoor tours and anything that sells on a clear day. Combine it with a temperature condition for “hot and clear”.

Time windows

Every trigger looks at one of these windows:

The quick setup offers today, the next 2 or 3 days, and the past 24 hours. The advanced builder checks today or up to 5 days ahead.

What a trigger can do

When the trigger is met, a rule does one of three things to the ad sets you picked:

• Turn on: for weather that creates demand
• Turn off: for weather that stops you working or selling
• Cut budget: lowers the ad set’s daily budget by a percentage you choose, then restores exactly what you set in Meta

WeatherTrigger never raises a budget above what you set in Meta, and never touches bids, audiences or creative.

With “Put the ad sets back when the weather clears” switched on, a rule reverts once two checks in a row come back clear, so one odd forecast doesn’t flip your ads. You can also keep the change in place for a set number of days, which is how the gutter and roofing presets keep advertising after the weather passes. Every check is logged with the weather reading, whether the rule matched, and what happened to each ad set.

How often the weather is checked

You choose for each rule: every 30 minutes, every hour, every 3 hours (the default), every 6 hours, every 12 hours, or once a day. Every 3 hours still catches a change the same morning, and an ad set only changes when the rule’s result does.

Where the weather data comes from

WeatherTrigger uses OpenWeather for current conditions, daily forecasts and official weather alerts. You pick a location by searching for a city or suburb, or by entering coordinates, and the rule checks the forecast for that point. Pick the town your customers are in, not your office. Rules for the same town share one forecast lookup.

On the Pro and Business plans, one rule can cover several locations, each checked against its own local weather and switching its own ad sets.

Example rules by trade

These are the presets on the first step of the rule wizard. Every number is editable on the next step. For the reasoning behind each industry, see 7 industries that benefit most from weather-triggered ads.

Try a trigger

Start a 30-day free trial, no card needed. Connect your Meta ad account, pick a trade preset or build your own trigger, and the first check runs as soon as you create the rule.

Related reading:

• Weather-Triggered Advertising: The Complete Guide
• Weather Targeting for Facebook and Meta Ads
• Weather Ad Measurement and ROI