Navigating around storms is hard. How I use OSM + custom rendering style to monitor road surface integrity - even offline!

[James Hammett]

I've been chasing with the OsmAnd app using OpenStreetMap (OSM) data for a few years now and it's a game changer. For me there's a couple of great features in particular:

1. Ability to edit the underlying OSM data to make corrections when necessary -- especially important for road surface integrity
2. Ability to use a custom map rendering style to instantly differentiate road types (e.g., poor gravel vs. paved highway) for safe and efficient navigation

Other maps are happy to route you right into a plowed field with no distinction in road surface. But in OSM road surface is a metadata tag subject to crowdsourced editing! I've made a ton of edits myself and it feels like I'm actually accomplishing something on those completely busted storm chases.

I've been using my own custom rendering style and it's working great. Easy to differentiate between expressways, paved secondaries, Bob's Road, etc. And the bright colors are easy to see in sunlight on my OLED tablet.

Check out and download my custom rendering style optimized for storm chasing here: GitHub - pqo/stormchasing-rendering-style: An OsmAnd rendering style optimized for storm chasing!

The OsmAnd app (Android, iOS) uses offline data you save to the device in advance by simply selecting which states to download. I update mine at the start of each season and do smaller live updates on a per-chase basis. So it doesn't depend on internet access at all.