Coinciding with this year’s Lightning Safety week, Weather Central’s MyWeather.com division has launched PinPoint Lightning, an iPhone application with live lightning strike data and alert notifications.
PinPoint Lightning is said to be the first app to register cloud-to-ground lightning strikes within 30mi of a user’s geo-located position and deliver rapid alerts enabling people to take immediate action to ensure their safety.
Pinpoint Lightning uses patent-pending technology to identify a lightning strike’s location by latitude and longitude, and then determine the nearest street intersection. The app sends alerts displaying the time of lightning strikes and their distance from the user’s current location.
Immediately following these alerts, the user sees a street-level view of the most recent strike and a display with specific information. For example, it would say, “Lightning Strike, 1200 Main Street, 2mi northwest from tour location at 2:06 p.m.”
In addition to geo-located notifications, the app is equipped with animated local and national radar displays as well as various terrain options. It has the ability to save up to 10 locations. The app is operational in the continental United States and Canada only.
Lightning is the most deadly weather event on the planet, surpassing both tornadoes and hurricanes in yearly death toll averages for the past 30 years.
The Pinpoint Lightning app is available via the iTunes store.
