Severe weather alerts via text message to cellphone?

I was referring more as being an EAS activation. How long does their technique forcast?

SCVJeff wrote:
Lightening seeks out what it wants and isn't very selective. Trees are as grounded to the earth as an antenna, often more so.

They can usually predict thunderstorms and their general intensity depending on whats forming it, but certainly not where the strikes are gonna hit. Once you get to the Midwest and out of the Pacific influence, it's pretty amazing how accurate the forecasts are for days at a time.

NASA systems at Cape Canaveral (for the now defunct Space Shuttle program) -- note the last sentence -- with enough money, you can do amazing things!

Lightning Detection Systems--The Launch Pad Lightning Warning System (LPLWS), Lightning Detection and Ranging (LDAR) system and the LLP Lightning Detection System provide data directly to the Range Weather Operations on atmospheric electrical activity. These systems, along with weather radar, are the primary Air Force thunderstorm surveillance tools for evaluating weather conditions that lead to the issuance of lightning warnings.

The LPLWS is made up of 31 electric-field mills uniformly distributed throughout KSC and Cape Canaveral. They serve as an early warning system for electrical charges building aloft or approaching as part of a storm system. These instruments are ground-level electric field strength monitors. Information from the LPLWS gives forecasters information on trends in electric field potential and the locations of highly charged clouds capable of supporting natural or triggered lightning. The data are valuable in detecting early storm electrification and the threat of triggered lightning for launch vehicles.

LDAR detects and locates lightning in three dimensions using a "time of arrival" computation on signals received at seven antennas. Each part of the stepped leader of lightning sends out pulses which LDAR receives at a frequency of 66 MHz (equal to TV channel 3). By knowing the speed of light and the locations of all of the antennas, the position of individual steps of a leader can be calculated to within 100-meter accuracy in three dimensions. LDAR provides between 1 and 1,500 points per flash. This is the only system currently able to provide detailed information on the vertical and horizontal extent of a lightning flash rather than just the location of its ground strike. LDAR detects all lightning including cloud-to-cloud and in-cloud as well as cloud-to-ground.

The LLP detects, locates and characterizes cloud-to-ground lightning within approximately 60 miles of the RWO. Electromagnetic radiation emitted from lightning is first detected by the system’s three direction finder antennas located at Melbourne, Fla., Orlando, and in the northern area of KSC. Lightning positions are computed using triangulation from two of the sites, and relayed to a color display video screen in the RWO. Once lightning-producing cells are identified and located, it becomes easier for the forecaster to predict just where the next lightning bolts will hit.

One of the only apps that I have paid any $ for is a weather app called "On Guard". It sends alerts for any/many warnings that you can choose. It "follows" my location - I do not need to do anything to it to get local alerts. I also have Radar Now, that sends alerts, and Weather.com. However, only OnGuard has a PERSISTENT alert, not just a text-type single alert, meaning it WILL wake you up if it alerts, which, I believe, is the whole idea...! As others (Jeff) have said, I do not solely rely on my "Droid - I also have a weather radio that sounds an alert. The advantage to the radio is I keep mine "open", not SAME-specific, so I know what is happening in nearby counties. ALL of the weather apps that I have checked will only alert based on your specific location. I'd prefer to know what is happening "upstream", so to speak - affords a little extra prep time! ST

Lightening seeks out what it wants and isn't very selective. Trees are as grounded to the earth as an antenna, often more so.

They can usually predict thunderstorms and their general intensity depending on whats forming it, but certainly not where the strikes are gonna hit. Once you get to the Midwest and out of the Pacific influence, it's pretty amazing how accurate the forecasts are for days at a time.

Thanks for the replies, I'll start looking into those options.

Just out of curiosity, are lightening storms able to be forecast with some degree of accuracy and forewarning? It appears that Washington state has the fewest cloud-to-ground strikes of any state in the country (Florida has the most) so I don't have any first hand experience with them.

Also, while looking around online for lightning info I noticed that many ground strikes hit trees. In one case semi-locally a strike hit and shattered a very large tree. I was always under the impression that a ground strike would seek out things like antennas and other metal or elevated metal structures? The house near this tree had what appeared to be a number of such metal protrusions on the roof yet was unharmed.

90% of those are from Intellicast/ WSI and are exactly the same app., just rebranded for the station. While really nice, they don't replace a weather radio for all the reasons above.

Wrace wrote:
I was wondering if there is any sort of severe weather alert service and/or app for a smartphone (android). I'm looking for something that would provide alerts for specific gps

There are many, Most television stations have an app, some are free, some are fee.. (WHy they think they can charge a fee I do not know)

srt20 wrote:
NOAA has an app. Sends alerts. I cannot stand accuweather or weatherbug apps. Constant crashes.

I use the NOAA weather radio app. I don't know if it sends texts or not, I use the notification feature on my phone. My brother and I were comparing my NOAA app with his Accuweather app yesterday as all sorts of warnings (tornado watch, severe thunderstorm warning, flash flood warning) were going off in our area. The NOAA app performed much better.

There is a Podcast called Living the RV Dream that I listen to, and this subject came up a few weeks ago when someone emailed the show saying there was no need for a weather radio when he has weather alerts on his smart phone, and that's all that was needed. The following was my email reply to John over this..
--------------------------------------------------------------------


Hi Kathy & John.. :)

Still out here listening to all the shows on my daily commute and heard a few things that caused me to check in..

---snip---

As for replacing a perfectly good NWS emergency radio with a smartphone app.. While this seems like a great idea, I have an entire page of Push Message weather and EAS IPAWS apps, and there are many many issues with their reliability, all the way from NWS data reliability (their delivery to the data server), to data delivery to the various app servers, to whether your phone has reliable enough data coverage. I am part of an FCC advisory committee that has specifically addressed these issues and have spent months vetting out the reasons these systems could or will fail, then recommend how to fix them.

On my iPhone I have Weather Channel, Accuweather, Intellicast, Weather Radio, ELERTS, Wx AlertUSA, Weather Alerts, City Alerts, Inciweb, and 2 others that are developer betas. Of all of these, when I sit the NWS radio on the window and compare them against the iPhone, none catch ALL of the NWS alerts ALL the time, and all it takes is one miss. Of all of these I think the most consistent app is Weather Radio. I was able to watch all of these in action a few weeks ago while in San Antonio and Austin while the storms were moving in off the Gulf, and Weather Radio was the one I would choose if I were limited to only one app and I had no access to a real weather radio.

---snip---

If you have sparse voice coverage, don't expect your SMS coverage to be 100% either. They are both digital and use the same data channel. While SMS isn't streaming like voice and does have error correction, you're still on the edge. If you have NWS coverage, use it first.

BTW- There is an app for the iPhone called 'Boltmeter' that does a pretty good job of showing lightening strikes in a radius out to about 30 miles with a map overlay showing where. But as with the Wx apps., it needs reliable data delivery to work.

Thanks for the replies, I will take a look at those suggestions.

Just out of curiosity, are things like lightning predicable ahead of time with some degree of accuracy? Washington state has the fewest cloud-to-ground strikes of any state in the country (Florida the most), so I don't have much experience with it.