Timeliness and accuracy. When it comes to severe weather alerting via mobile device (or any method), these are the two most important criteria in the eyes of recipients of this life-saving information. Given the average lead time for a typical Tornado Warning in the United States of 8-10 minutes, alerts delivered even a few minutes after their initial issuance by the National Weather Service deprive those in the path of the storm of precious time needed to properly shelter. In addition, unnecessarily warning those not in harm’s way of a nearby storm leads to warning fatigue, thereby leading to complacency on the part of those who may, on subsequent occasions, be in the storm’s path.
StormWatch+ Alerts (SW+ Alerts) has recently proven its exemplary performance in each of these areas beyond a shadow of a doubt. Starting with timeliness, recent upgrades to the back-end architecture and software that make up SW+ Alerts have resulted in an improvement in delivery speed by orders of magnitude! What does that mean? In simple terms, our ability to retrieve a severe weather alert from our database and deliver it to your mobile app, even during active weather events, is now under TWO SECONDS. In fact, there have been multiple occasions of late that SW+ Alerts has alerted users prior to the National Weather Service’s own iNWS text message-based system. (Remember that the NWS is where the alerts originate!) Here’s a testimonial from one very impressed user:
StormWatch+ Alerts (SW+ Alerts) has recently proven its exemplary performance in each of these areas beyond a shadow of a doubt. Starting with timeliness, recent upgrades to the back-end architecture and software that make up SW+ Alerts have resulted in an improvement in delivery speed by orders of magnitude! What does that mean? In simple terms, our ability to retrieve a severe weather alert from our database and deliver it to your mobile app, even during active weather events, is now under TWO SECONDS. In fact, there have been multiple occasions of late that SW+ Alerts has alerted users prior to the National Weather Service’s own iNWS text message-based system. (Remember that the NWS is where the alerts originate!) Here’s a testimonial from one very impressed user:
“I have multiple apps (18 to be exact) that will alert me to severe weather…. this app [StormWatch+] is consistently one of the first apps that alerts me during any type of severe weather. A+ app with gold star customer service.” –App Store Review
Another area where SW+ Alerts has excelled, and remains a market leader, is accuracy. NOAA Weather Radio, outdoor warning sirens, and even some broadcaster mobile apps continue to warn entire counties for alerts that are issued for fractions of those areas. Even Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) that are now standard on recent mobile devices overwarn, as they target any capable devices that are within transmission range of a tower that is within the warned area, creating “bleed-over” into unwarned areas. There have been many instances in which the boundary of a Severe Thunderstorm or Tornado Warning polygon is mere blocks away from a user’s location and SW+ Alerts accurately warns (or doesn’t) that device. Using ultra-precise latitude/longitude locations for both the warning “polygon” and the user’s location(s) to be monitored, a simple cross-reference is done and the alert is pushed only to the locations in harm’s way. An extreme example occurred recently, which even caught us off-guard and required some deep investigation. As it turns out, our trust in the technology behind SW+ Alerts only increased.
The image below shows a zoomed area of Manhattan, New York City, NY. A StormWatch+ user lives in the apartment building circled in the image. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was presumably issued for his location, but he did not receive a push notification. On closer inspection (very close!), the boundary of the warning polygon literally went right through his apartment building. His side of the building was just outside the warning - literally within FEET - so he accurately did not receive the warning!
The image below shows a zoomed area of Manhattan, New York City, NY. A StormWatch+ user lives in the apartment building circled in the image. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was presumably issued for his location, but he did not receive a push notification. On closer inspection (very close!), the boundary of the warning polygon literally went right through his apartment building. His side of the building was just outside the warning - literally within FEET - so he accurately did not receive the warning!
Here’s another testimonial from a satisfied app user:
“I am a storm spotter. I use this app and [a popular radar app] to chase and spot storms. I have used [other] weather alerts apps…but nothing compares to the accuracy of this one. No false alarms, no alarms about storms out of my range.” –App Store Review
In conclusion, when severe weather threatens, people simply want to know if they will be impacted and want as much warning as possible. SW+ Alerts provides both – the fastest alerts possible (in some cases beating the NWS’ own dissemination technology) and the most precise warnings.
