With East Coast residents keeping a worried eye on Hurricane Irene, there’s a host of mobile apps, Twitter feeds and other digital tools available to help.
These are few suggestions to Keep you Safe.
HurricaneHD ($3.99 in Apple Store)
HurricaneHD provides exclusive video, blog posts from weather experts and other tools for folks watching Irene and other future storms.
It has a tracking map that can display multiple storms at the same time, sends active storm bulletins and contains an archive of information about past hurricanes.
It can also use GPS to tell you how far away you are from various points of a nearing storm.
Weather Channel (free for Apple and Android devices)
Both the Android and Apple versions feature animated radar, video, local forecasts and the ability to upload photos and videos of local weather.
Weather Channel Max, free for the iPad, adds full-screen, customizable weather maps, in-motion radar and real-time Twitter feeds from Weather Channel meteorologists.
Hurricane Hound ($1.99, Android)
Based on Google Maps, Hurricane Hound tracks storms in the Atlantic and east Pacific, as well as passing along National Weather Service advisories and warnings.
StormPulse is a website that uses date from the National Hurricane Center, cloud imagery from the NERC Satellite Station and basic imagery from NASA.
Users can click back and forth to show radar, cloud cover, watches and warnings and other features on a real-time map.
Staying Powered
Assuming mobile networks are up and running, folks in areas hit by a storm like Irene could be affected anyway by persisting power outages.
To stay plugged-in, it will be important to have a power source to recharge your mobile devices that doesn’t depend on plugging into the wall or desktop.
