Your phone pings and as you glance at it, an alert informs you that you have traveled into a Tornado Warning. You immediately pull off the road, check where you are in regards to the storm and head for shelter. As strong winds pass over the location where you are hiding, you wonder what would have happened if you had not received this alert.   

It is usually an easier situation to handle when you are sitting at home or in your office, and the National Weather Service (NWS) issues a Tornado Warning. When there are severe weather alerts on your WeatherOps mobile app, you hopefully know what actions to take to protect yourself, your family or your co-workers. If you don't have a plan, that’s something you need to take care of soon. Is severe weather coming? Before severe weather season gets going, you need to be able to answer that question and assess your weather risk. 

For most weather apps, the trigger for getting an alert is being inside the NWS polygon when the watch or warning is issued. But a new feature in the WeatherOps mobile app triggers the alert when you move into the polygon. As in the hypothetical case mentioned earlier, you would get the alert if you drive into an existing Tornado Warning.

You could be two miles outside a Tornado Warning polygon when the warning is issued, and there would be no alert. However, as soon as you enter the polygon, our WeatherOps app will alert you to the fact you are now in a warning.

The applications for this feature are far reaching. Sure, it is useful to the everyday person leaving a football game or graduation ceremony where they have been busy paying attention to what was going on inside as opposed to outside. However, it would also be useful to a trucking company hauling merchandise across the country to reduce business interruption. After all, it is a lot cheaper to purchase the WeatherOps service than it is to try and settle an insurance settlement after a truck either drives into a tornado or slides off the road due to ice!