Spotter Tools Pro: Storm Radar

Smoother radar: single-site radar (Level III & TDWR) now auto-refreshes to the newest scan on its own, and we fixed a brief flash when the radar first loads.

GPU-accelerated radar. Single-site radar now renders on the GPU (native OpenGL on Android, Metal on iOS) — crisp and smooth at any zoom level, no more blocky tiles. Storm cell cards: tap a storm cell for a curved nowcast track plus hail size and storm-structure details. Added West Virginia (WV511) live traffic cameras — ~127 feeds.

New: on-device Soundings. Pull up full atmospheric profiles right in the app — skew-T diagrams, hodographs, and complete sounding analysis, from observed balloon data and HRRR forecast profiles. No desktop required. Dual-view radar: split the screen to compare two radar views side by side — reflectivity vs. velocity, two products, or two sites at once, each with its own controls. Smoother GPU radar rendering.

Soundings improvements: new forecast scrubber to step through the hours ahead, a corrected skew-T orientation, true local-time labels, and tidied forecast-site pins. New map styles: Nav Day and Nav Night base maps, easier storm-cell tapping, and storm tracks / lightning / Nav Night now on by default. Added Mexico live webcams (103 cameras).

New: Presence (opt-in). Turn it on to see other Spotter Tools Pro users on the map — their avatars, usernames, and bios — and let them see you. It's off by default and completely optional; nothing is shared unless you switch it on. Smoother sign-in on iPhone: native Sign in with Apple, plus a cleaner Google sign-in flow. Fixes for map marker and avatar rendering (your custom/premium marker now shows reliably).

Fixed an issue where if a user was signed into the spotter network their avatar would not appear until the beacon was activated Backend changes.

Tap-anywhere soundings. Tap any point on the map to pull up a forecast sounding right there — skew-T, hodograph, and the full forecast scrubber to step through the hours. More stable & lighter on your Device. Fixed the top crashes reported this month and cut background work that could cause freezes (ANRs) or out-of-memory issues.

Bigger tropical toolkit. Named-storm forecasts now include model spaghetti tracks (the individual model paths behind the cone) and when tropical-storm-force winds are expected to arrive, plus a wind field, coastal watches & warnings, a storm list, and basin-correct labels. Read the models at a glance. Weather-model layers now show on-map value numbers that follow the animation, so you can read the actual forecast value at any point over time. Sharper soundings — an accuracy pass, a hazard summary board, and clearer data timing. Further memory fixes to reduce out-of-memory crashes.

New: live wind flow. A gorgeous animated wind layer streams live surface wind across the map as flowing, speed-colored particles (blue → green → orange → red) — see exactly where the wind is ripping at a glance. Better composite radar. Loop any composite product with up to 12 hours of history, sharper retina (2×) imagery, and a new quality-controlled Base Reflectivity mosaic that updates about every 2 minutes. Soundings layout fixes (no more scrunched view; clears the system nav bar), plus a cleaner in-app logo.

This one's for digging into storms. Mesoanalysis layer — NEW See the ingredients behind severe weather, right under the radar. 26 SPC-style parameters — instability (CAPE), wind shear, and composite indices like Significant Tornado and Supercell — grouped and one tap away. The mesoscale picture the pros watch, now on your map. Expanded storm cell details Tap a storm cell for a much deeper look. The details card now shows peak reflectivity and how long the cell has been tracking, its footprint, estimated mass and volume, and the peak low-level wind with a plain-language impact read — a complete picture of a storm's strength and where it's headed. Cell picker — more data, and fixed on iPhone/iPad The crosshair cell picker (tap the radar to read the exact values under the reticle) now gives a full readout of every radar product, including the new dual-polarization data. We also fixed a bug that kept it from loading on iPhone and iPad — it's reliable again. More radar products Two more dual-polarization products join single-site radar — Correlation Coefficient and KDP — to help you pick out debris, hail, and heavy rain. Faster Level 2 radar Level 2 radar now loads noticeably faster and fresher. Tap a site mid-scan and it paints the current sweep right much faster instead of catching up, so you're always looking at the latest data. New forecast model: RRFS Added on both the weather-models map and the soundings model picker. Thanks for spotting with us — stay safe out there.

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.39 Dual-view radar • Both panes now animate in sync during playback • The loop automatically stops when you switch product or radar site, so you never sit watching a stale loop Single-site radar • New thumbnail-grid product picker: a scrollable, grouped bottom sheet that shows each product as a labeled thumbnail instead of a cramped list Weather models • The forecast timeline now opens at the current time rather than the run's initialization hour (f00), so you start on the most relevant frame Composite radar • The animation loop now renders full-domain frames, and a gesture-hold fix removes the blank flash that could appear while panning • The MRMS legend now sits above the play and loop controls, so it no longer overlaps them

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.40 New observations Surface observations from RTMA: 2 m temperature, dew point, theta-e (equivalent potential temperature), wind, and wind gusts, all as true analyzed observations rather than forecast output New map layer Surface Fronts: the WPC Coded Surface Bulletin drawn on the map with cold, warm, stationary, and occluded fronts plus high and low pressure centers Composite radar New product picker with category banners and chips that opens directly on the product you select Inspection and palettes MRMS crosshair readouts now sample the full-resolution data, so peak values (like a storm core) read accurately instead of reading low Extended precipitation palettes and raised gate-filter ceilings, so extreme flood rates stay on scale Stability Quieter background crash reporting and an avatar-catalog fetch fix

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.41 New Air Quality layer EPA AirNow air quality on the map: Combined AQI, PM2.5, and Ozone. Tap any station for its reading A 24-hour loop animation and a smooth contour surface, with decluttering so dense areas stay readable Alerts Flash Flood Emergencies are now a first-class alert, handled with the same top-tier treatment as Tornado Emergencies Satellite A per-product freshness badge so you can see how current the imagery is An outage banner when a feed goes down Loop-length chips to set how far back the animation plays

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.42 New Outlooks layer A multi-product outlooks layer on the map: Convective outlooks, Day 1 through Day 8 Thunderstorm (general thunder) outlook Excessive Rainfall (ERO) and QPF Fire Weather outlook Winter Storm Severity (WSSI) CPC 6 to 10 day temperature and precipitation Drought Monitor Contours are smoothed so outlook edges read clean instead of stair-stepped. Satellite GOES-West added, so you can view East or West Radar-synced loop that tucks the clouds under the precipitation GPU cross-fade animation for smooth frame transitions Crisper, faster live view with lighter, quicker-loading loops Full-disk coverage and probe-anchored loops The freshness readout now names the specific satellite running behind Radar Models and radar are mutually exclusive again, so they no longer draw over each other The Live Chasers layer now restores automatically Announcements In-app announcement cards can now play video inline

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.43 Radar Radar site pins now render as lettered status pills, color-coded for up, down, or loaded, and they declutter automatically as you zoom out Composite now picks up within-the-hour MRMS frame updates, so the latest data shows sooner, and skips redundant repaints when a refresh is identical Discussions WPC Mesoscale Precipitation Discussions (flooding MPDs) are now included in the Mesoscale Discussions layer Beacon New upload intervals: 7, 10, and 15 minutes, for finer control over battery versus update rate Fixes and stability Panning the map no longer opens a point sounding by accident Layer refresh timers re-arm after the app resumes, so live layers no longer freeze after backgrounding Memory and crash fixes from ongoing triage, plus a color-table (.pal) import fix

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.44 Satellite Per-region GeoColor: bounded regional boxes deliver crisper true-color imagery, both live and animated Fixes The tropical layer no longer blanks out on Android (some tropical systems carried null geometry that could clear the whole layer) Bottom-edge legends no longer overlap the composite radar play and transport bar

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.45 New long-press map menu Press and hold anywhere on the map for a quick context menu: pull a point sounding, list the nearest radars, inspect that spot, or find the nearest cameras In-app Contact & Feedback A new Contact & Feedback option in Settings lets you send feedback or reach out from inside the app Fixes and stability The estimated population count inside a warning polygon no longer hangs, and now yields in frame-safe slices Fixes for a dispose-time listener re-entry and a stale annotation handle

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.46 Radar - New FastScan sweep: an optional beam-reveal sweep animation with range rings and live pipeline status chips (off by default, turn it on in settings) - New TVS (Tornado Vortex Signature) markers on the Level III storm-attributes overlay Lightning - Smoother strike reveals: the reveal clock now catches up in bounded steps instead of dumping strikes in batches Alerts and performance - The nationwide warning polygon pipeline is now split into class and band buckets and no longer deep-copied on every build, so warnings render faster and with less jank - Satellite frame and image caches are released under memory pressure to reduce low-memory issues Fixes - The long-press pan veto now survives main-thread stalls, so long-press handling stays reliable under heavy load

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.47 Find any place fast - A new search box in the map menu lets you type any city, town, or place and fly straight to it, no more panning and pinching across the map Radar range rings - Rings are now labeled in miles so you can judge distance at a glance - Ring colors are customizable, and they adapt so they stay easy to see over any radar product FastScan sweep - The sweep beam now spins continuously for a live radar-scope feel - Pick your own beam colors - A behind-the-scenes speed boost makes Level 2 radar smoother Fixes and reliability - Search and pin panels no longer hide behind the Android navigation bar - The app starts up more reliably (a launch-time background-service timing issue is fixed) - Fixed a rare crash when closing an announcement video while it was still loading

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.48 - A redesigned loading screen gives the app a fresh first impression at launch - Improved startup reliability: the app now waits for a calm moment before starting its background services, so it opens more smoothly and dependably

Spotter Tools Pro 1.0.49 See storms in three dimensions - Radar cross sections: draw a line across a storm and get a vertical slice through it, so you can see the structure from the ground up instead of just the view from above - 3D radar tilt: pitch the map with two fingers and the radar beam rises with distance, the way the real beam does, so you can see how a storm stacks up in the sky - Full-volume radar decoding under the hood, so every tilt of the scan is available Satellite - Two new GeoColor regions: East Pacific Tropics and Central Pacific - Faster, smoother loop playback, with new 3x and 4x speeds - Fixed the freshness readout so it reports the imagery you are actually seeing Weather models - Model values now show as numbers anchored to city names right on the map - The live crosshair readout now includes a weather-model line - Model buttons are now labeled by resolution, and a new EHI 0 to 3 km product was added - Smoother model animation Everywhere else - 3x and 4x speeds on every animation player - Surface Fronts now has a sizing submenu so you can scale each element to taste - Radar sweep beams now animate at a consistent speed