NOAA Radar Pro: Weather Alerts

I have always liked tracking weather whether it be seeing incoming rain when I'm walking my dog or keeping track of a hurricane as it heads toward land (or not) or up the coast. I like that I can see predictions of a hurricane's progress. What I don't like is that as I tap on a forecast point I have to go through two levels. First the white rectangle that tells me little more than the storm's name and its intensity. Then I can get a full-page report of its name, intensity, projected wind speeds, and mapping coordinates. Then if I want to get a sense of how it's moving, I have to go back to the map and repeat the whole process. Tedious and not very efficient. How about the white rectangle actually giving useful tracking info rather than long spelled out labels? Category 3 = Cat3. The date and time of the forecast so I can very efficiently track along the path and get a sense of how fast it's moving and how it's gaining or losing strength. I like being able to bookmark locations so I can quickly check places where my kids live or to which I frequently travel. Last thing, even though I deleted the bookmark, the map defaults to a place (Gould, RI) that doesn't exist. How about I be able to designate one of my bookmarks (like my home) as the map default. It's coming close but it's missing the mark.

People were complaining about large location icons, fast radar time lapse, etc. Well guess what? There's options to change those in Settings! Just because you're not App Savvy doesn't mean you should give bad ratings and complain. I'm a 47 year-old single mother and if I can figure out what the circular gear icon symbol means and tap it to find the settings you can too! You can also choose map or satellite imagery, the degree of clarity on the coverage of the "clouds" so you can still see what city it is. Change the speed of the playback. How long do you want that red pin with the nice, visible print for the location to stay there? 10 seconds or 1 minute? I think there were 4 options. Those are just the ones I looked at before the "please rate the app" popped up. I really like it and find it functional, accurate (so far), and not too difficult for a grandmother to use. If you can't figure it out, get your kids to help. 😊

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I have to say that after using this app compared to the multitude of other weather notification apps that I have, I am not impressed at all. I live in Savannah, GA where we get some pretty bad weather from time to time and I like to know when that weather is on my back door. Just recently we had a mild tornado outbreak, as well as a slew of severe thunderstorms. Of all of the apps that I have for weather with the notifications turned on, NOAA was the very last app to give me a notification that the storm was happening, and at times that notification was almost an hour after the storm had passed. If this was the only app that I had giving me notifications, my family and myself could have wound up seriously injured or worse if just one of those tornado producing storms had hit my house and I was relying on this app. The sad thing is that this is a paid app, that I purchased for a little bit of reassurance during bad weather to give me some piece of mind and the only thing it has done is make me more weary about severe weather in my area. And for anyone that reads this and is wondering, this has not been the only time that the app has been extremely delayed in letting me know that there was bad weather approaching. It happened in April, as well as January, during the tornado outbreak across GA. So basically, it's not a fluke.

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I'm a certified storm spotter and have chased some of the largest storms on record for the Oklahoma area. The notifications are great. The radar, not so great. I use the free app of weatherbug that seems to be more accurate. I still chase storms in Las Vegas and have noticed that weatherbug shows more information and more accurate information. Looking at the radar on both apps, I prefer weatherbug. I've missed a few storms due to the inaccurate radar information. They seem to be behind. It all could be accredited to what your use to. I'm use to radar that shows everything at realtime. Hook echo is very difficult to read on this app. I've been in the center of a large storm and pulled up NOAA. The radar said the storm wasn't over my location. I pulled up weatherbug and it showed me otherwise. The accuracy was much better and easier to read. I’ve also compared the radar to several other sources. Including The Weather Channel website and app, Apple weather, and AccuWeather and weather bug . The NOAA map will tell you the system is weaker than it actually is. Not good!!!

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If another noaa radar app wasn't out there offering heaps more functionality (for a similar price) then I might give this app more stars. Currently I can not find a feature in this app that offers layouts for a temperature map, wind speed, water temperature, and even a storm path layout, as is available in another app similar to this one. All I see is the option to view information for specific locations by entering/tapping around a location. The only layout I can find is storm coverage (by layout I dont mean satellite view..) Sad to see this app charging people over 4$ (3.99 at 30% off??) for what? Notification functionality? On the other hand the widget and notification features are a strong point in this app.. But notifications require location services to be ALWAYS ON and as you see on first opening the app their is a big fat privacy star next to this. If your fine with your location being used for ad content then you might not consider this a con. Anyways I hope apple doesn't decide to hide this under the thousand or so other reviews this app has like it does with all my reviews.