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]

Mis-spoke on the FIPS codes above. Many if not all radios can respond either to either select EAS Event Codes, or the entire group without regard to FIPS programming. I have a scanner that does that, and I think my EAS receiver will as well. The obvious advantage is that it will respond to a TOR, FFA, or any of the life threatening alerts regardless of location. Thats how i would run mine if traveling.

[CavemanCharlie]

I just have a Weather Alert Radio. That works for me. Some of the best , new ones, have SAME function that will only alert you for your area. It is true that if you use the SAME function you will need to know that area you are in and that could be difficult, I suppose, if you are traveling. So, I would just use my normal one that picks up alerts from the local National Weather Service radio station.

To each there own. I have a hard enough time just trying to figure out how to keep my smart phone working without ever trying to get it to do other things. Takes me 3 minutes to make a call just trying to get past all the stupid adds of junk it is trying to sell me. Be worthless in a emergency.

[phays]

For Android, take a look at WeatherBug. Will send alerts to your location. Gave me enough time to make it to a rest area and sit out a pretty bad thunderstorm a few years ago.

[Dtank]

SCVJeff wrote:

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... 🙂

OK - what's your phone number?...:@

.

[SCVJeff]

cmcdar wrote:

SCVJeff wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:
I've found "Weather Radio" to be a good app for storm warnings, etc. It uses the phone's GPS to localize the warnings to your location, or you can choose from multiple saved locations. Many alert setting options, and it's available for both Android and iOS phones. The Android version is $4.99 and well worth it in my opinion.

Thats the one. It just sits in the background and works

Does this require your smartphone to be connected to wifi or 3/4g?YES. IF YOU HAVE INCOMING DATA, IT WILL WORK

I will be on the road for a few months. It would be nice to find a weather radio to automatically scan for reception rather than wait to be programmed.YOU CAN PROGRAM THEM TO ALERT ALL 'FIPS' CODES AND SIMPLY NOT PROGRAM YOUR LOCAL AREA. NOT A BAD IDEA WHEN MOVING AT 70MPH. IF YOU ARE IN RANGE OF AN NWS TRANSMITTER, THE RADIO WILL WAKE UP AND ALERT YOU TO WHATEVER WARNINGS IT'S CARRYING AT THE TIME

Ideally, an app that would send warnings (depending on my location) as I drive. ie Tornado Warnings.THERE ARE MANY THAT WILL DO THAT, STORM DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ITS ONE OF THEM (STILL PLAYING). WEATHER RADIO IS A FOLLOW-ME APP

Best of all worlds would be to have weather alerts over my GPS Radio. I know this is available in some units, just not mine.GPS DOESN'T HAVE A "RADIO", BUT SEVERAL IN-CAR GPS RECEIVERS HAVE SUBSCRIPTION WEATHER RADAR OVERLAYS FED VIA SATELLITE RADIO. I LET MINE LAPSE. THE IPHONE IS WAY BETTER AND FASTER. HAVEN'T SEEN ONE THAT DOES TORNADOES (BUT ALSO DON'T LIVE IN TORNADO COUNTRY.

Right now I would settle for a regular weather radio that will just scan to find a local station.PS _ I am right now replacing a Radio Shack (piece of crap) that has just decided not to work.SEE UP

Thanks,
Caryl

[cmcdar]

SCVJeff wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:
I've found "Weather Radio" to be a good app for storm warnings, etc. It uses the phone's GPS to localize the warnings to your location, or you can choose from multiple saved locations. Many alert setting options, and it's available for both Android and iOS phones. The Android version is $4.99 and well worth it in my opinion.

Thats the one. It just sits in the background and works

Does this require your smartphone to be connected to wifi or 3/4g?

I will be on the road for a few months. It would be nice to find a weather radio to automatically scan for reception rather than wait to be programmed.

Ideally, an app that would send warnings (depending on my location) as I drive. ie Tornado Warnings.

Best of all worlds would be to have weather alerts over my GPS Radio. I know this is available in some units, just not mine.

Right now I would settle for a regular weather radio that will just scan to find a local station.PS _ I am right now replacing a Radio Shack (piece of crap) that has just decided not to work.

Thanks,
Caryl

[Naio]

mgirardo wrote:
Just an FYI Weather Underground's Storm App is only available on the iPhone and iPad, it is not available on Android.

DarkSky is also only available on the iPhone and iPad, not on Android.

-Michael

That explains a lot.

The Android store has dozens of things with those names, but none are the ones discussed here.

[mgirardo]

Just an FYI Weather Underground's Storm App is only available on the iPhone and iPad, it is not available on Android.

DarkSky is also only available on the iPhone and iPad, not on Android.

-Michael

[SCVJeff]

Dutch_12078 wrote:
I've found "Weather Radio" to be a good app for storm warnings, etc. It uses the phone's GPS to localize the warnings to your location, or you can choose from multiple saved locations. Many alert setting options, and it's available for both Android and iOS phones. The Android version is $4.99 and well worth it in my opinion.

Thats the one. It just sits in the background and works

[BubbaChris]

fj12ryder wrote:
It seems to me that if it is that easy the local weather forecasters should be able to do a better job than what they actually do. Maybe you should offer to do their job for them. 🙂

"Local" for me on TV is a person 300 miles away trying to satisfy about 5 million people in their coverage area. They actually do a nice job for where I live, but do not cover most of the spots I like to camp with any kind of detail.

[holstein13]

fj12ryder wrote:
It seems to me that if it is that easy the local weather forecasters should be able to do a better job than what they actually do. Maybe you should offer to do their job for them. 🙂

It's much more difficult for local weather forecasters to do their job than it is for an app to tell me if it will rain on my location in the next ten minutes and how long that rain will last.

The local weather forecaster must determine the probabilities of rain throughout the entire day or days even if a storm front is nowhere near the area. In addition, the forecasters' area is several orders of magnitude greater than the point in space my app is looking at. The forecaster must predict fog, temperature, snow vs rain, humidity, wind speeds, etc.

My app does a very basic thing on a hyper local basis and it does it very well.

[Dutch_12078]

I've found "Weather Radio" to be a good app for storm warnings, etc. It uses the phone's GPS to localize the warnings to your location, or you can choose from multiple saved locations. Many alert setting options, and it's available for both Android and iOS phones. The Android version is $4.99 and well worth it in my opinion.

[fj12ryder]

It seems to me that if it is that easy the local weather forecasters should be able to do a better job than what they actually do. Maybe you should offer to do their job for them. 🙂

[holstein13]

fj12ryder wrote:
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."

You can't predict the weather with absolutes. We talk about weather in terms of probabilities. If the weather forecast calls for a 60% chance of scattered showers during the day, that's not very useful information to me.

What these apps do is completely different. Yes, they do show you the forecast for the day, but, more importantly, they look at the radar and the direction of storms heading your way. When I get an alert that rain will begin soon, it means that it is A) Currently raining nearby and B) that storm is heading in my direction and will pass overhead in a few minutes.

Is it 100% accurate? No. The storm could fizzle out by the time it reaches me or the wind may shift, etc. But it's much more useful information than the general probabilities they provide on the news. Furthermore, I can simply pull up the app and look at the high resolution radar videos and make my own predictions.

Sometimes, I'll look at my app and see storms for hundreds of miles all around me. It's easy to deduce that it will rain for much of the day or along my route. Other times, I'll look and see a tiny group of clouds that will soon pass by. In that case, I'll just wait it out.

To me, these apps bring weather forecasting into a useful and actionable pursuit. It's very good now and can only get better with development and more advanced algorithms.

[Laman]

fj12ryder wrote:

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."

If you chose do ignore weather you can see on a radar, with the thought " it might fizzle out" than you deserve whatever outcome occurs.