Weather geeks rejoice with amazing high-res satellite images in near real-time
MySky
If you really want to follow that storm front, you usually have to rely on satellite footage that could be hours old. Now there's a way to track the weather in near real-time at high resolution.
What is it about?
MySky taps into that stream of satellite imagery, giving you a way to view it straight from your iPhone or iPad. You don't get real-time feeds, but it's pretty close. In my testing, the app never lagged behind NOAA's feed by more than two hours.
For those who...
- love watching cloud coverage satellite images
- want to keep up with storm fronts and hurricanes
Not for those who...
- want an app for serious tornado chasing
- expect the latest imagery from GOES-East
Why we love it
MySky isn't the most beautiful app for tracking satellite footage, but it is still the best I've found. You can easily adjust the exposure of the satellite footage, enabling you to easily view cloud cover even during the night hours. Using sliders, you can control the aforementioned exposure as well as the number of snapshots to download and the speed at which the app loops through the still shots. Stop playback, and you can use the image slider to scrub through the downloads. I really like the way the app allows you to drill down and focus on various parts of North and South America. Tap on "Sector," and you can choose a variety of regions. Choices include several of the continental US states, various Central and South American countries, and other geographic regions. For example, you can instantly zoom in on the Great Lakes, or Hurricane Alley, just by tapping those sectors in the list. To get back to the full view of the hemisphere, just tap on "fulldisk." The only disappointment I have with MySky is with how slowly it acquires and downloads images. The developer states on its support page that the occasional timeout is caused by the NOAA server itself, and perhaps that is the case. Usually, quitting and restarting the app will cure things right up. It can be frustrating, but I've seen that problem plague other apps downloading recent satellite footage.
App Screenshots
App Store Description
Weather geeks rejoice! View, animate, zoom, and enhance the highest resolution visible satellite images in near real-time from the GOES-East weather satellite. Choose from 40+ designated sectors for the best resolution images. Country or state boundaries are automatically overlaid on the images. Animate up to 50 frames at speeds from 0.5 to 10 frames-per-second. A scrubbing feature allows manual animation. An exposure adjustment feature provides a means to "brighten" the images. This is a great tool for hurricane season, storm chasing, and weather analysis. Observe cloud structure, formation, movement, and dissipation. Smoke and volcanic eruption plumes are clearly visible using the exposure adjustment feature. This is a good app for students of meteorology because the observable cloud motions indicate wind direction at different altitudes. Dry-lines, outflow boundaries from storms, and fronts can be distinguished by their evolution over time.
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