iHurricaneHD
As Hurricane Irene is poised to pummel the East Coast this weekend, hitting states from North Caroline to New York, a good place to get a wealth of information while on the go is your smartphone.
Here is a list of apps that will help you track the hurricane as it travels on its course.
- Hurricane Express – This 99-cent iPhone app keeps up-to-date info coming to users with push alerts, hurricane forecast tracks, model data, animated satellites, video updates. Information is published on the app from the National Hurrican Center in Miami, Florida. It also includes a curated Twitter and News feed.
- Hurricane – This is the premium model of Hurricane Express. Typically it’s $4, but it’s on sale for $2. Includes everything from the basic app but also gives historical data on past hurricanes so you can compare them with Irene.
- Hurricane HD — This $4 app is by the same makers as the aforementioned ones, but it’s in HD and for iPad.
- iHurricane HD — This is a free app dedicated to tracking hurricanes. It works for both iPhone and iPad. An interactive chart shows the current and forecasted path, and you can touch it to see where the eye of the storm is at a given forecasted point. The app also uses your phone’s GPS to tell you how long it will be until the hurricane arrives at your location. And you can sign up for email alerts, too.
- iMapWeather Radio – This 99-cent iPhone app will give you critical voice and text alerts on life-threatening weather events. We’ve written a full review on it here.
- RadarScope – This is the big daddy of the weather-tracking apps. At $9.99, RadarScope is for the real weather wonks around you. It gives you up-to-the-minute Tornado, Severe Thunderstorm, and Flash Flood Warnings issued directly from the National Weather Service. It also gathers info from NEXRAD radar sites giving you raw (level 3) radar data. Here’s what it says on the app’s description page: “Whether you are scanning reflectivity for a mesocyclone’s tell-tale hook echo, trying to pinpoint the landfall of a hurricane’s eye wall, or looking for small features like velocity couplets in the storm relative radial velocity product, RadarScope gives you the power to view true radial NEXRAD weather radar on your iOS device.”
Android Devices
- Hurricane Hound – This Android app offers a hurricane tracker using Google Maps as the background. It costs $1.99 for the ad-free version and is free with ads. It tracks a hurricane’s current location and forecasts, as well as point out areas the National Weather Service has on alert.
- Hurricane Software – This free Android app is still in beta, but it lets you see coordinates data, high-resolution maps, satellite images, warning information. A storm-tracking feature lets you view the hurricane’s path.
