Storm Shield app review

Storm Shield

Price: $4.99 (as of 4/11/13, marked down to $2.99)

Storm Shield by E.W. Scripps Company is a top-notch weather app for your iOS device. It’s on sale right now, marked down to save you two dollars, so get it fast.

This app basically converts your device into an emergency weather radio. If you live in an area prone to violent weather, or even if bad weather only occasionally occurs, you need this app. It could literally save your life.

You’ll get alerts for winter storms, floods, tornados, thunderstorms, hurricanes, and other events by both push notification and voice notification.  The app uses NOAA polygon warnings.

The newest version also sends school closing information for several cities.

Don’t worry about getting random alerts for cities far away from you: with this app, you will get alerts just for the area where you live. If your saved or current locations are inside a NWS watch or warning box, you’ll receive a notice.

Features of the app include live video, map overlays, an interactive radar map, and forecasts that cover current conditions, the next seven days, and hourly.

 

Storm Shield uses iOS Location Services to balance location accuracy and battery usage. Background tracking will have some effect on overall battery life. You control how much accuracy you want for your location and impact on battery management. You can turn off background tracking to save battery in Settings. In this mode Storm Shield will only utilize the GPS when it's open.

Storm Shield was updated to Version 2.5.6 on March 14, 2013. The update made performance improvements. The current version has 35 customer ratings with an average of 4.5 out of five stars. Feedback comments are positive.

I can see how this app would be great for people who live in heavy-weather areas. Luckily for me the worst thing I can expect normally is a snowstorm, but I still find this app really provides a peace of mind.

For: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad with iOS 5.0 or later. Storm Shield is optimized for iPhone 5.