Storm Spotter for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch

[Ross Kimes]

Storm Spotter is an iPhone and iPad weather radar application. Here is a basic rundown of its key features (from the App Store's listing).

* Support for Base Reflectivity (124 nm or 248 nm), Composite Reflectivity, Base Velocity, Storm Relative Velocity, One Hour Rainfall, Storm Total Rainfall, Vertically Integrated Liquid, and Echo Tops.

* A customizable Google Maps (Standard, Satellite, Hybrid, or Terrain) display that allows you to set the opacity of the radar image as well as turn the warnings display on of off.
* A complete warnings list (Tornado, Severe Thunderstorm, and Flash Flood) that also allows you to view the text file for the warning.
* Storm Spotter will automatically connect to the radar closest to the center of the screen so you can just pan around the map to see weather occurring at different parts of the country (configurable and unique to Storm Spotter).
* iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 3G users can use the GPS to display their location on the map. Great for storm chasing, or just avoiding the storm altogether. The original iPhone can display location based on cell phone tower triangulation and iPod Touches can be located based on their IP address.
* Radar animation is available, plus the ability to manually navigate between frames (only iOS app that can do this).
* The ability to connect to multiple radars simultaneously so more than one radar will stay updated (Note: Only one radar can be displayed at a time, but the other connected radars will continue to download data in the background)
* Saves images of connected radars between launches so you won't have to download the same image over and over again
* Shake your device to check for updates for the warnings and all of the connected radars (otherwise checks every 2 minutes).
* View all all 155 radars on the map, or see them in a list organized by state or as a list of your favorites.
* Entire application can run in landscape mode and the map can run in full screen.


I would appreciate y'all checking it out and letting me know you opinion of it. I originally designed it for chasing so it would love to hear feedback from the chaser community.

Thank you,
Ross Kimes

 

[Andrew Herron]

How many frames can be downloaded and viewed?

I already have RadarScope and my big gripe, along with GRL3, is the lame attitude that I have a set number of frames to view.

 

[Ross Kimes]

It will save frames for the last three hours or 20 frames (for memory reasons). Pressing the animate button will download the last 5 frames, and there is a button that will download the last 10.

 

[Jarrod Barnett]

Android > iPhone

Jus sayin....

*hint hint*

 

[Ross Kimes]

Well it was just announced yesterday that an Andoird version is in the works. Won't be ready for a couple of months, but it is coming. Check out the Facebook Page (Storm Spotter App) or Twitter account (@stormspotterapp) for more info on it. We are really excited about it.

 

[James Siler]

I have to get permission to purchase first. Money's tight, but I think I am gonna give it a try.

 

[Ross Kimes]

Thank you! Please let me know what you think of it if you pick it up.

 

[James Hilger]

Dont know if id use it much since i have GRLevel3 but I'll definately pick this up when it comes out. Very nice App. Had it on the Iphone but of course had to drop AT+T due to poor service.

 

[rdale]

SpotterNetwork support?

 

[Ross Kimes]

I don't have Spotter Network support at the moment.

 

[Brandon Headley]

The app is very slow and I have used it on none chase days when there is just a rain storm blowing thru and it seems to crash and not display the image on 3g. Seems to take up a lot more memory then RadarScope does. It may be because of the map behind the radar.

 

[Ross Kimes]

Brandon, have you used it at all this month? The last update that went out on December 1st (Version 2.3) really improved the performance issues that previous versions had.

RadarScope can download images a bit faster because it is using Level 3 data instead of Ridge, but the app itself is just as fast (and has some other features that make up for not having L3 data yet).