Weather along route

[deepdoc1]

I know Google Maps and CoPilot (and others) have active traffic reporting along your planned route, but I haven't seen any apps that have weather alerts/forecasting along the route. I have had several close calls with tornados and thunderstorms that pop up without much warning, and while I always look at weather during a trip, I yearn for an app that knows what my route is, and can pop an alert when it thinks I'm headed for a danger zone. Is that still a pipe dream, or have I missed something?

Regards,
JimB

[ktmrfs]

in addition to many many phone app's, sirus xm has a weather and traffic option that will give weather and traffic alerts on your route as well.

course the phone app's only work when you have cell service. which for us when traveling is often an issue. there are still quite a few roads, including interstate sections in idaho, mt, utah, OR, WA etc. that don't have GSM or CDMA service.

One reason we paid for the Sirus xm weather. Course it does require you have a decent view of the southern sky.....


On our denali, you can set what level of alert you want before it pops up on the screen. and when in nav mode it shows weather and traffic all the time.

And we usually travel with portable radios with MURS/FRS/GMRS to use between vehicles or for the kids at the campground. and those usually can be programmed for the NOAA weather channels which can be programmed to come on when a weather alert is broadcast.

IMHO NOAA is problematic. there are lots of areas that do not get coverage. the transmitters are fairly low power and not many in each state.

[deepdoc1]

I guess I didn't put all the info in my first post (my bad), so I'll add to it now. I have a Samsung Galaxy S8 with multiple weather apps that I use frequently, and I do get weather for any point on the map that I currently occupy. I always check the forecast before I get on the road, and fairly often during the day. I also understand that tornados are hard to forecast and that thunderstorms "typically" are ponderous and more easily forecast, but tornado/thunderstorm watch/warning alerts do come along between my checks, and these days, thunderstorms can pop up with little advance notice.

I have no particular problem continuing my current methods of due diligence while on the road, but I'm not up on all the tech solutions there are, and I'm just cursed with the desire to hunt snipes. 😉

In my feebleminded-ness, I don't see a marked difference between the ability of an app to have close to real-time traffic reporting, and the potential to also pull info from the various weather stations around the country and present the watch/warning info as an overlay for whatever navigation app I'm using.

So, to sum up, I was just wondering if tech had caught up to my feverish dreams yet, or if I'm doomed to slogging along as I have always done (tongue-in-cheek).

Thanks again.

[StarkNaked]

One option is to get a radio that has NOAA weather alerts.

Another is to try an app on your phone. Here's one: NOAA Weather Radar & Alerts

Haven't used this app myself, so I have no reviews to offer.

I used to use Weather Underground Trip Planner, but it has been changed so many times, it's no longer useful to me.

[GordonThree]

DutchmenSport wrote:
I have no clue how it does it, what program it runs off of, or how it got there in the first place, but my Samsung Galaxy phone has weather alerts. It doesn't matter where we travel, if weather is getting severe, it sends an alert. Here again, I have no clue how or why my phone does this, it just does.

Typically the phones ship with a basic weather app that follows you.

You can enhance the information provided by installing a different app, such as WeatherBug, Wunderground, IBM Weather Channel, etc ... during setup of these apps, you have the option of giving it your home location or choosing follow me / use current location. Typically the next option is to enable weather alerts.

[DutchmenSport]

I have no clue how it does it, what program it runs off of, or how it got there in the first place, but my Samsung Galaxy phone has weather alerts. It doesn't matter where we travel, if weather is getting severe, it sends an alert. Here again, I have no clue how or why my phone does this, it just does.

As far as trip planning? All you can do is check something like weather.com and punch in a location and see what's happening there in the near future.

[NMDriver]

NOAA Link You can find the weather for anywhere in the country and get forecasts in 12 hour increments. It includes wind forecasts and ice forecasts.

[GordonThree]

Garmin supposedly does this with their 760,770 and newer gps... For an added fee of course. You run a Garmin weather app on your smartphone and that links with the GPS unit, or something like that.

Tornado spotting is very last minute, I wouldn't count on anything but a weather radio or cellular emergency alert for something like that.

Thunderstorms are pretty reliably forecast, not sure how you get surprised by one? Review the daily forecast for areas along your route on weather.gov before setting out in the morning.