![]() For example, in the Now page, you can browse the hourly forecast with a 12-hour time span. These are the fundamental features: you can tweak them with a bit of customization. Cameras nearby - lets you see what's happening with the weather in any given area.Time - sunrise and sunset time, moon phases etc.Weather news - locally, nationally and globally.Weather Now - based on your GPS signal, the app informs you of the air temperature, humidity, dew point, atmospheric pressure, cloudiness, pollen levels, etc.Here's what the little beetle can detect for you: The app offers a number of handy features and precise clockwork forecasts: it collects info from thousands of weather stations worldwide, processes the data and gives you highly correct results. These days the meteorology bug seems to migrate to the mobile platforms: more than 10 million people have downloaded Weather by WeatherBug Android version. But the lack of geolocated push alerts is a deal breaker.Ĭapital Weather Gang member Angela Fritz is The Post’s deputy weather editor.įor stories, features such as Date Lab, Gene Weingarten and more, visit WP Magazine.Weather by WeatherBug features: Weather-Wise InsectĪ while ago every computer owner used to have Weather by WeatherBug for Windows (7,8,10, XP, vista). Spark itself is buried in the sidebar menu with no mention on the home screen once you get there the map is clunky, with just a few zoom levels to choose from.īottom line: Spark is interesting and potentially useful if you’re already paying attention to the weather. ![]() Users have to weed through a lot of screens and options to find what they’re looking for. It will not geolocate you when the app is closed instead, it uses a fixed location of your choosing.Īnd though the app provides useful data and information, its interface and graphics are poor. And despite the app’s claim that Spark will “follow” you, it does so only when the app is open. Spark is WeatherBug's lightning detector.Ī couple of drawbacks: WeatherBug does not offer an option to get basic lightning alerts you have to trust the app’s algorithm to push you those Dangerous Thunderstorm Alerts. Using this data, the app will send a push notification to your device if you’re in the path of a “dangerous thunderstorm” that might not have yet prompted a severe thunderstorm warning. To that end, WeatherBug employs an algorithm that detects not just the bolts that hit the ground, but also the flashes within the cloud. Instead, you’d get an alert when lightning was detected within a certain distance of your location. ![]() “Bolts from the blue” have been documented up to 25 miles from their parent storms.īut while being able to see where lightning has been detected is valuable, ideally you wouldn’t have to be aware of impending thunderstorms and continually checking your phone for lightning strikes. Opening Spark will show you how far you are from the nearest lightning strike, which is useful because you don’t necessarily have to be directly under a thunderstorm to be at risk. It’s powered by WeatherBug’s own 1,000-sensor lightning-detection network, rather than relying on the two well-known lightning networks that many weather services use: Vaisala and WSI, a sister company of the Weather Channel. The lightning detector, called Spark, is just one small feature of the WeatherBug app (free for iOS and Android), which also provides current weather conditions, an hourly and 10-day forecast, and severe weather warnings. So when Germantown, Md.-based Earth Networks added a “personal lightning detector” to its WeatherBug app, curious Washington Post editors asked me, a meteorologist, to take a look. Given the risk, and the number of severe thunderstorms in the Washington region, a weather app that offers lightning detection sounds appealing. ![]() As of late August this year, according to the National Weather Service, 22 people had died in 13 states from lightning strikes. Even the most mundane of storms can generate lightning, which kills dozens of people in the United States annually. A thunderstorm doesn’t have to be severe to be dangerous.
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