TECH SPOTLIGHT

Useful apps shed light on spring’s dark and stormy nights

Melissa Jones
Technology Columnist
tech Spotlight
Melissa Jones Technology Columnist tech Spotlight

The good news: The snow appears to be gone, finally. (Everyone knock on wood, quickly.)

The bad news: Severe storm season has arrived.

With the fun we had Thursday, I decided to check out a few apps to prepare for the onslaught of storms I expect us to have this spring. Really, after this past winter, would we expect anything else?

There is such a variety of apps out there, I could go in several different directions. In this case, I looked for apps that would give me the most information possible or, in some cases, would provide weather alerts and updated radar.

I started with WeatherMate, an iOS app that costs 99 cents. It isn’t available for Android yet.

Weather Mate has lovely graphics and lots of useful information, including cloudcover percentage, dew point, barometric pressure, UV index, wind chill and sunrise and sunset times. This is in addition to the standard information in most weatherapps - temperature, humidity, wind speed and the forecast.

The app also provides a weekly forecast, and each day includes hourly details. It provides a lot of information to plan your week. The app even includes the current date and time. It has smooth displays and attractive background images.

The app has a few extras as well. A camera button allows you to capture the information on the screen and post it to social media sites. A bar across the top will scroll weather alerts when they are in your area. The app will even speak the current conditions at the touch of a button.

The only issue with this app is its maps. It only provides regional maps, and they aren’t very detailed. They don’t have state boundaries and only locate a city or two. They also only provide information about cloud cover and precipitation. Frankly, the maps need a lot of work.

Weather Mate isn’t ideal for radar imagery, but it’s great if you need detailed forecasts to plan your week.

NOAA Weather Radar from Christopher Coudriet ($2.99) promised to be the best radar app on the App Store (it isn’t available for Android). Well, I don’t know about that, but it does have its merits.

It’s a fairly simple product. It provides animated radar images from stations throughout the country. It also provides quick access to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Graphical Forecasts, those maps that show things like temperature, precipitation and wind speed predictions. It provides the graphics that show where there’s a slight, moderate or strong risk for severe weather.

Of course, the real key is the animated maps. Not only do you get to see the NOAA-based regions, but the app also shows maps for each state. It’s great for Arkansas because you don’t have to scroll far. It’s a little more annoying for people in Wyoming, I suspect, because there are a lot of maps in this app.

The good news is, I finally found an app that will send push alerts when weather warnings hit. The app allows you to pick a county, and the app will send alerts for that county. It also will send alerts to whatever your current location may be, provided you purchase that feature in the app. It’s another 99 cents.

NOAA Radar did well, but I still haven’t found anything to beat my favorite radar app by far, RadarScope.

I was introduced to this app by actual meteorologists, and I know several who use it. This app provides radar from all of the NEXRAD (next-generation radar) stations throughout the country, the same stuff the weather people use on television. Unlike NOAA Radar, this isn’t limited to the standard precipitation map. This app includes all types of radar from that station, including those new dual-polarization maps the meteorologists were excited about last year.

The stations in Little Rock and Fort Smith both show not only precipitation amounts but also type of precipitation. The app also has velocity maps the weather guys show when they talk about rotation in storms. You can see the red and green for yourself. (Just a tip, red means the wind is moving away from the radar, green means it’s moving toward it.) It also shows maps on correlation coefficient, differential reflectivity and others that you may not have a clue about, but they look cool. They can be handy once you learn how to use them. (The RadarScope website has a basic explanation of these maps.)

RadarScope is the complete package. Aside from the maps, it also includes watches and warning boxes and dialogue, storm tracks, spotter network integration and detailed maps with cities and county borders. If you want what the meteorologists have, this will provide it. Unfortunately, you have to pay for it. The app is $9.99 on iOS and Android and a whopping $30 for Mac computers. Still, if you want a solid, reliable radar app, it’s worth the price. I use this app often while storm spotting.

It’s nice to know there are some good options available as severe storm season hits. When it comes to staying safe in these storms, every little bit helps.

Melissa L. Jones can be reached via email at [email protected].

Business, Pages 23 on 04/07/2014

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