Life saving hurricane info locked behind a paywall
Life saving hurricane info locked behind a paywall
The app is Clime Pro on iOS, they lock full access to Hurricane Milton data behind a $10 USD per week paywall.
If you’re in the area impacted by Milton, you can find publicly available resources at the National Hurricane Center’s website: National Hurricane Center
There is nothing more tech-bro libertarian than taking free public data, wrapping it in a slick package, and selling it.
I used to think that TV weather people were obsolete, but now I'm nostalgic for the public service that survived in the old capitalistic ad based broadcast TV era.
To be fair, free broadcast tv and radio is still a thing, and they are an integral part of the US's disaster alert system. With the right equipment (read: basic cheap radio available almost everywhere), you can still listen to weather information (both general and severe) directly from the horse's mouth 24/7 for free.
In a disaster situation, these services will still stand because they require less infrastructure per person reached than is required to deliver high-speed internet to the same number of people.
These services still exist, and will continue to, but the knowledge of them has atrophyed from disuse. They won't go away, they've just been replaced in general usage because of the convenience that the internet provides us.
TL;DR: Get you a weather radio, get free weather for the life of the equipment. Even if it's not your daily driver, get one anyways, because you'll be able to hear the most relevant info in the worst situation.
I have a weather radio. Every time I turn it on during an intense storm, it gives me very little useful information. It tells me something like "a tornado has been sited in your area [without defining what that means], seek shelter immediately." After the last massive storm ended where so many fallen trees destroyed homes, took out power lines, made roads impassable, etc. and the cell network was getting jammed by so many users, do you know what information the two local TV stations and the local radio stations were offering?
Fuck. All.
But hey, one of the two TV stations did relay the fact that the state had made a disaster declaration half a day after the declaration was made.
Those services exist, but they're almost useless.
But muh free market!
In a hypothetical world where everyone has every comfort available and every need met,
in that world at least,
I could say:
“There is some room for wrapping something in a sleek package!“
(Maybe I’d pay a dollar if someone remade those graphs really beautifully)
Even AccuWeather is saying they're going too far now.
They realize they need that government data too.
AccuWeather's business model relies on "adding value" to government-provided data, and monetizing it. Maintaining a fleet of satellites isn't cheap.
Project 2025 wants to disband NOAA and give its functions to Accuweather instead, directing taxpayer funding to a private company while also locking all weather data behind a paywall, so they get paid twice to provide the same info NOAA currently provides with a single payment (taxpayer funding). The Accuweather founder, Joel Myers, and his brother, Billy Lee Myers (unsuccessfully nominated by Trump to be the head of NOAA), are major Republican donors, but I’m sure that is completely coincidental.
Aww man, that was my go-to weather app. Anybody have FOSS suggestions for android?
I don’t know about apps, but they ultimately all get it from the National Weather Service. Since it’s a government service, the website is totally free of ads and other garbage. Just use that. Weather.gov. You can search for your home, and since it uses absolute URLs, you can then bookmark the results page and just go straight to that every time.
My CalyxOS came pre-installed with Breezy Weather
Breezy on F-Droid, maybe Google Play, is pretty nice.
Throwing it out there, but https://www.nhc.noaa.gov is hands down the best hurricane tracking site. It’s low Bandwidth, quick, lightweight, legit data backed, and generally the source data for most other weather sites.
nhc.noaa.gov is the best for quick, up to date official info about expected impacts. Also local county and municipality pages are important to check for evacuation orders and routes.
For anyone who wants technical deep dives into the meteorology of tropical storms, I can't recommend www.tropicaltidbits.com enough.
noaa do be fuckin
It's shitfunny because this is a perfect opportunity for apps like this to play into Capitalism and succeed twentyfold.
Open up the app to everyone for free during the hurricane, remove that after hurricane. So many people will go:
- "OMG this app is useful, I'm paying"
- "OMG that company is so kind, I'm paying"
- "OMG I didn't even know about this but people spread the word, I'm paying!"
So many opportunities for longer-term profits missed by idiocy.
You have way more faith in people's attention span than I
but think about how many people will pay now to not have ads on their life saving information.
During a hurricane is the only time people ever use these apps
What data does this app have that isn't freely available somewhere else?
Yep. Hurricane info is available from official sources for free.
However, I can’t help but imagine some tiktok of someone finding themselves trapped on a rooftop crying because their preferred app wouldn’t show some critical info.
For anyone who doesn’t know where here’s NOAA. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/093335.shtml?cone They’re who does America’s atmospheric and oceanic measurements, everyone selling it gets it from them
It's like my Canadian colleagues complaining that they can't find any info about big weather events on Facebook and I'm like "You realize your taxes pay for info available to all?"
but do the taxes pay for it in a form they can parse and use (minion memes)?
Sure does as there's apps for everything these days!
noaa.gov. for sat images go to the goes image viewer
Ah, demanding you to pay or die. Isn't capitalism grand?
Free coverage from Ryan Hall Y'all on youtube. He's livestreaming for the foreseeable future with no ads.
LightningMaps is my favorite real time weather map site.
NOAA's National Hurricane Center is the gold standard and updates regularly.
I came in here to link Ryan Hall. He and the ring of meteorologists, storm chasers, weather enthusiasts do fantastic work.
Mike's Weather Page is a hobbyist page that aggregates a ton of info.
That site is an absolute mess!
Ryan Hall is doing a Livestream on YouTube providing all day coverage of the hurricane. Several cameras up in areas that will receive the worst of it. Several meteorologists on staff, radar info and explanation, storm chasers on the ground. Pretty much all of the information you could need. Link
AccuWeather is free and provides up to date hurricane info.
If you care about having your taxpayer-funded weather accessible without going through a private, corporate middleman, you should never use AccuWeather.
The future of NOAA if trump gets elected
The NOAA has no future if Trump gets elected.
God bless capitalism
This feels so american lmao
It's made by "bending spoons operations", an Italian company.
From app's the website:
Copyright © Bending Spoons Operations S.p.A. | Via Nino Bonnet 10, 20154, Milan, Italy | VAT, tax code, and number of registration with the Milan Monza Brianza Lodi Company Register 13368510965 | REA number MI 2718456 | Contributed capital €50.000,00
They also make WeTransfer, MeetUp and Evernote
Edit: they only bought these, they didn't make it.
The same guys who made the coronavirus app?
Didn't know they reduced to such scummy practices.
Sadly it's not US-only. Weather.com sued the German Federal weather service for having their app free of charge available on both app stores. The federal constitutional court ruled in weather.coms favour as the federal service infringes upon the constitutional right of property and business. It is now (rather the time I payed) 3,49€ one-time payment for having something as an app that is already being payed for my taxes. Meanwhile the danish weather service, whose I app I frequently use even though it is in Danish, is free due to their constitution being more lenient towards state services (or more socialist should I say to rile some people up)
We know the best ways to suck, even our storms!
Why you’d get any weather information from anyone but Frankie MacDonald, with his very own weather station, is beyond me
"Get the fuck out of Florida" -free
and then its very very hard to find a free alterntive that shows you the same info
Use a different app preferably one from F-droid
You're not wrong, but they're gonna have to ditch their iPhone for an Android first, LOL