Amazing apps that alert me to rain and ligtning

[holstein13]

A few months ago I found a great app for my iphone called "Dark Sky" that alerts me when it's about to rain. My experience with it so far has been remarkably good. I'd say it's about 60% - 75% accurate. It has a nice alert jingle and gives me time to bring in chairs, awnings, etc. It also tells me when it should stop raining and it's hyper local.

Recently, I found another good app by weather underground called "Storm" that alerts me when rain is in my area and also lightning. This new app has a great storm tracking radar that projects the storms into the future. It's my new favorite app.

I also noticed that the Weather Channel's app does something similar but I haven't had great luck with it so far.

[SCVJeff]

So the option is saying "the heck with the weather predictions", make the climb only to end up as a rescue and being asked what idiot didn't check the weather?

[fj12ryder]

Laman wrote:
The ability to see weather coming at you to me is invaluable. Ever go out hiking or biking and have a thunderstorm catch you, to late to look up! I know when I was farming I would have given lots of money to know what kind and intensity of weather was approaching, that would have literally over the years saved me a great deal of money and time.

To me the weather apps. and campgrounds finding apps. alone justify the cost of the smart phones and plans

But you're assuming that the weather apps are any more accurate than the weather people putting them out there. And so far weather forecasting is right up there with water witching, and reading tea leaves as far as accuracy is concerned.

I mean I can see you check out your apps and they say a big storm is on the way, so you cancel your climb, hike, cookout, whatever. Then it's "Oops, sorry we were wrong, the storm fizzled out."

[holstein13]

Laman wrote:
The ability to see weather coming at you to me is invaluable. Ever go out hiking or biking and have a thunderstorm catch you, to late to look up! I know when I was farming I would have given lots of money to know what kind and intensity of weather was approaching, that would have literally over the years saved me a great deal of money and time.

To me the weather apps. and campgrounds finding apps. alone justify the cost of the smart phones and plans

X2 - Forewarned, is forearmed.

[Laman]

The ability to see weather coming at you to me is invaluable. Ever go out hiking or biking and have a thunderstorm catch you, to late to look up! I know when I was farming I would have given lots of money to know what kind and intensity of weather was approaching, that would have literally over the years saved me a great deal of money and time.

To me the weather apps. and campgrounds finding apps. alone justify the cost of the smart phones and plans

[holstein13]

filthy beast wrote:

Belgique wrote:
I can't find either one in the Play Store and I'm usually pretty good with this stuff. Guess I'll go old school like some have suggested and just send the Lab outside and see if he comes back wet.

Here's the Storm app for android, I believe it is free.


Storm app

That is definitely not it. Looks like the same name, but it's not from the Weather Undergound and doesn't look like my app.

[SCVJeff]

dcmac214 wrote:
Rain, lightning, winds to 35-40mph we take in stride same as sunny days.
What I'd be interested in is warnings for severe weather like flash flood, tornado, hail, high wind, &c, that follow me when I've got the gps thingie on. I get that automatically from our local TV station but it's only for our home region.

I can speak only for the iPhone, but there are several:

Storm allows you set one location to monitor (bummer.. It's predicessor allowed several), or run it in GPS "Follow Me" mode. I have lightening mapping activated on this as well and it seems pretty accurate. It's sure had a good test run in OK and TX lately.

Weather Radio No maps, no fancy anything. This is strictly an EAS notification app that allows at least 5 set locations of your choice, PLUS GPS in "Follow Me" mode. Most of my monitoring is West coast, but I also watch Dallas, so this has been lighting up like a xmas tree for weeks. The developer of this app sat on an EAS advisory committee with me a few years ago. He was part of the mobile group, and I was a broadcaster, but he is serious about what he's doing. Also when I thought I wasn't picking up ALL the NWS issued alerts, they wouldn't leave me alone until we were all satisfied that it was running OK. I like that..

I have about 32 other Wx apps: EAS alerting, radar only, wind, lightening, etc. But these two really take care of most of it short of real tornado tracking doppler radar.

BTW- These GPS enabled apps are nowhere near as power hungry as in the past. Allot of their positioning come from the cell network that it is always pinging anyway.

[dcmac214]

Rain, lightning, winds to 35-40mph we take in stride same as sunny days.
What I'd be interested in is warnings for severe weather like flash flood, tornado, hail, high wind, &c, that follow me when I've got the gps thingie on. I get that automatically from our local TV station but it's only for our home region.

[banjo]

I thing I'll stick with my weather rock.....

[filthy_beast]

I use Storm and other Weather Underground apps and sites because I have a personal weather station at home that I can see on their maps.

[Belgique]

Thanks beast!

[filthy_beast]

Belgique wrote:
I can't find either one in the Play Store and I'm usually pretty good with this stuff. Guess I'll go old school like some have suggested and just send the Lab outside and see if he comes back wet.

Here's the Storm app for android, I believe it is free.


Storm app

[2oldman]

If I could get one for wind, that was anywhere near accurate, I'd go for it.

In So Cal in winter it can be a howling gale outside and the weather app says it's 10mph.

[Belgique]

I can't find either one in the Play Store and I'm usually pretty good with this stuff. Guess I'll go old school like some have suggested and just send the Lab outside and see if he comes back wet.

[SCVJeff]

westernrvparkowner wrote:
I can beat 65% accuracy by looking up at that thing called the sky. And can get pretty close to 100% of that lightning thing by listing to something called "thunder". Even more significant is both of them are free and don't require carrying around an electronic gadget.

Give us a call if you're ever curious what you will look up and see in 2 hours... 🙂

Personally I just like the technology and run at least 5wx apps in the background at all times, because one is never always accurate.

[2oldman]

Belgique wrote:
Thanks. For you others, that lightening will scare your horse and buggies

Will make your face lighten.