Weather apps for traveling?

My most important weather ‘tool’ is that I’m a retired full-timer.

If my route had a good chance of adverse weather, I simply do not travel that day.

No schedule, reservation deposit, etc is worth taking a chance of traveling in bad weather.

I realize that a lot of folks don’t really have the option. But a risk of an accident because of weather, either impacting me or other poor drivers on the road isn’t worth it to me.

Matt_Colie wrote:
....So, if you don't know a city or at least a zip code, they can be a problem....

Exactly! Kind of a pain to find places 500,1000,1500 miles away and plug their names into the standard weather app to see what's forecast or if there are any warnings/advisories. Let alone what's in between - like crossing a mountainous area that may have passes closed. And then there are the different state DOT, etc. places noting road closures due to snow, flooding, or the like that may not show up in an app because they are the after effects of the weather.....

Case in point - the recent shutdown of Interstates in PA to trucks/RV's due to weather. I could see easily being in Ohio heading toward it, and oblivious until I got into it.....

BTW - I have an old bias against Weather Bug from my days as a IT guy. It was one of the biggest scourges I saw that polluted users computers with adware back in the day. Spent too many hours scrubbing it and its associated payloads off of PC's. They may have cleaned up their act, but once bitten.....

I am a waterman and when one is, he "Keeps a weather eye aloft" or he becomes another name on a memorial plaque.

The problem with most of the phone level weather apps is that they tend to be local. So, if you don't know a city or at least a zip code, they can be a problem. We carry wire, so every morning I do a lot with numerous sites. (Too many to list here and some would make no sense to someone not experienced to read them.) To understand the expected weather for the day, be it a road day or local. The main data site for me is Unisys Weather. If you do not understand what it tells you, there are parts that are more citizen oriented that you can use.

There is an app for android called "Raindar". It locks into the GPS (if you have) and give a precipitation picture all around and can be requested to show current movement. I find this to be helpful if the weather is likely to be an issue during a road day.

Matt

At one time the various weather web sites and apps had some uniqueness. No longer since weather channel owns almost all of them.

However, all weather apps/ web sites/ tv stations/ radio stations start with the same forecast data from NOAA.

Choose one that you like the interface. I like local TV stations for the weather for the next 12-24 hours. Farther out than that, most TV stations feature potential for bad weather. It’s marketing. IF there is a possibility of bad weather, more people will tune in.

I like the interface for the 10 day forecast, radars and such from Intellicast.

One caveat. If you are facing an actual severe storm occurring NOW - the local TV station will have the best information. Though they tend to use community and road names intended for local viewers.

We went thru a tornado less than one mile from the COE campground northeast of Dallas on Dec 26, 2015. I was the only one of the folks crowded in the concrete bathhouse who knew how close the funnel cloud was to us because I had lived in that area for 30 years. We had a similar situation with tornado touchdowns five miles away several years before in Waco, but I didn’t know the local geography very well. So I didn’t realize how close it was to our trailer.

Take a look at WeatherBug

One more thing. They have an app for iphone with the same functionality. You can also add cities and set up alerts for windspeed or rain/snow. I think it is my new fav weather app.

The heat map kind of display allows you to see if high winds would be in your area of travel. It also does all the other stuff like temps, snow, rain etc.

I just found this site that I think has the best interface and info especially for wind.

WWW.WINDY.COM

coolmom42 wrote:
Don't know about the Apple app but there probably is one.

Yes, there is an iOS (Apple) version of the Weather Underground app, as well as the Storm app by Weather Underground. I have used Storm to assist when travelling.

Second Chance wrote:
I've used Weather Underground for about 15 years - ever since I had my first personal weather station uploading to them. Their weather forecasts are the most accurate I've found and you can choose from several "flavors" of RADARs and forecast maps. I find their 10-day graphic forecast particularly helpful.

Rob

Another fan of Weather Underground here. It has a network of personal weather stations that upload realtime data. One touch finds the one nearest you. Any alerts/warnings show up with an exclamation point so you can click/touch on that for details. The radar is very detailed and can be zoomed in or out with touch or a mouse, from nationwide to local details.

There is a website and a mobile Android app. Don't know about the Apple app but there probably is one.