Author Topic: Best Hurricane App for your phone?  (Read 1075 times)

Mr. Clean

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1186
  • FLMangos.com
    • US, FL, West Palm Beach, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
    • Florida's Finest Mangos
Best Hurricane App for your phone?
« on: September 14, 2017, 09:41:17 AM »
Like many of the TF forum members in south Florida, I am interested in tracking hurricanes apps for the phone when the power went off.  I used several weather apps during Hurricane Irma, but wasn't really happy with any of them.   If you had one that you were happy with, please share which app and why. 

After power went out, the phone apps were increasingly important.  The hurricane affected cell phone towers, so data usage became important as well.  Some apps stop loading, perhaps due to high data requirements.  Weak cell signal combined with high data requirements quickly drain a phone's battery.

Apps I used:

Hurricane Tracker
   pros - nice maps of hurricanes, fast loading.   
   cons - threat meter at "zero threat" while a Cat 5 hurricane was approaching, seems to have been abandoned by its developer.

Storm Radar (by Weather Channel)
  Pro - shows local radar information.
  Con - no hurricane prediction maps

Weather from NOAA free
  pros - has information from NOAA, covers vast territory.  The NOAA bulletins were really useful to figure out exactly where the hurricane was after power went out.
  cons - slow loading, stopped working when hurricane came (app is not actually from NOAA, has ads)

1Weather -
  pros - good for regular weather information
  con - no hurricane maps/charts

Marine Weather by Accuweather
  pros -good for boating
  cons - not good for hurricanes
www.FLMangos.com

110+ fruit trees/plants; 60+ mango trees; 9 jackfruit; 6 avocado; 3 persimmon; longan; and a dog that keeps raccoons and squirrels away.

BajaJohn

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 160
    • Mexico, Baja California Sur, Loreto, Hot Desert
    • View Profile
Re: Best Hurricane App for your phone?
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2017, 12:08:00 PM »
I lived on a boat in the Sea of Cortez for 10 years so hurricane tracking was an essential survival tool. I mostly rely on the web pages from wunderground.com. Their severe weather pages seem very comprehensive with maps of storm history, model projections and commentaries by their weather staff. They display all available models. Warnings begin as soon as they see depressions forming and track likely interactions with tropical waves that kick depressions into hurricane mode. They also have local 10-day forecasts for all of the U.S. They are currently tracking 7 storms worldwide.
Another site that is more focussed on marine weather is passageways.com. They have some good animated maps of wind, waves and pressure predictions but that means they tend to focus on just one model and they are sometimes inaccurate.