Hurricane Tracker For iPad

I have loved the Hurricane Tracker app ever since its inception. I upgraded to the Premium features as soon as they were made available earlier this year, and liked them a lot. However, I dropped my rating from 5 stars to 4 due to some sloppy support in the last month or so. It appears that in recent weeks, the app is simply providing automated data gathering from the National Hurricane Center’s feed, without any expanded analysis by the Hurricane Tracker staff. Right now, we have Tropical Storm Epsilon, and the app main page does not count it or mention it. Also, whereas last year, the app staff responded quickly to an email question, this year they have completely ignored a question from me about my account and a followup email. So, the app until recently was 5 stars, but its continuing support seems to be slipping. When it’s operating fully, as it has been until recently, it is GREAT. But, right now I’m a bit disappointed in it. I welcome a response from the Hurricane Tracker staff.

This app gets points for including the information that I need, and more. But the usability and visual design of the app itself are tragic. The storms that you want to follow are buried under “mystery meat navigation”, where you have to guess the storm’s current strength to be able to find it. Once you find it, the charts are also buried under mystery meat navigation. And they’re divided into three categories so that you’re forced to interact with the app to navigate forward and back, forward and back, just to see them all. Visual design is subjective and I don’t want to insult someone who obviously worked hard on it, but let’s just say that it’s the opposite of current minimalist, modernist design trends. These things start to really grate on your nerves when there is a storm near you and you need to check frequently for updates. If I could find an app with similar information and better usability then I would switch in a second. Update: Same UI a year later, but the developers think it’s perfect. I’m hoping to find a better app for this year’s hurricane season because this one was nothing but frustration during Hurricane Dorian.

I use this app daily during Florida hurricane season. I’ve downloaded it to both my iPad and Galaxy phone and it is absolutely the best. My wife has it on her iPhone and it works well there too. Tons of graphics that are updated several times a day. Whenever there is an update, you can allow your phone to sound an alert that sounds like a gust of wind. Awesome prediction graphs that combine multiple models to not only estimate storm path but also storm intensity. Thanks to the National Hurricane Center in combination with Hurricane Tracker, we were able to evacuate our home in Key Largo well in advance of Irma. I have recommended this app. to all of my friends.