A quick walkthrough of every section in the app — what it shows, where the data comes from, and what to watch for during severe weather.
Type a US city and state (e.g. Nashville, TN) into the search bar and press Go — or tap Use My Location to load weather for your current GPS position.
Once a location loads, the search bar collapses to keep the page clean. To search a new location, tap the ☰ Menu button in the top right and select Search a New Location.
Your last-searched location is remembered automatically, so it reloads the next time you visit. You can also save favorites by clicking the star icon after searching.
Tap the ☰ button in the top right of the header to open the menu. From here you can access My Locations, search a new city, switch themes, visit the guide, or send feedback — all without cluttering the main page.
When there are active severe weather alerts for your current location or any saved location, a red dot appears on the menu button so you know something needs attention at a glance.
StormPulse is a Progressive Web App (PWA) — which means you can install it on your phone's home screen and use it just like a native app. Once installed, it launches full-screen without any browser chrome, loads faster, and works with limited connectivity using cached data.
iPhone / iPad (Safari)
Android (Chrome)
What you get after installing
Open the ☰ Menu and select from eight color themes. Your choice is saved automatically and restored on your next visit.
Tap My Locations in the header to open a slide-in panel showing current conditions for each of your saved locations — temperature, condition, high/low, rain chance, wind, and any active alerts.
To save a location, search for it and tap the ☆ star next to the location name in the header. You can save up to 6 locations. Tap any card in the panel to load that location fully, or tap the ✕ to remove it.
The collapsible Your Day at a Glance card gives you a fast rundown any time of day: today's forecast and high/low, tomorrow's outlook, next rain timing, current alert status, and a clothing suggestion.
Tap anywhere on the card header to expand or collapse it. The briefing updates automatically whenever weather or alert data refreshes — every 5 minutes for weather, every 60 seconds for alerts.
The hero card shows the current temperature, feels-like, and a short description of today's outlook. Below it, the conditions grid breaks down wind speed and direction, humidity, dew point, UV index, and visibility — all updated every 5 minutes from Open-Meteo.
The Humidity card now shows a plain-English comfort level based on dew point — from Comfortable through Moderate, Humid, Very Humid, Oppressive, to Dangerous — color-coded so you can read the heat stress at a glance without knowing what a dew point number means. On hot days when the feels-like temperature reaches 90°F or above, a heat safety context line appears below the temperature to remind you to stay hydrated and limit outdoor exposure.
The Rain Chances · Next 24 Hours chart shows hourly precipitation probability as a bar chart — yellow bars indicate rain likely (70%+), bright blue bars indicate rain expected (40–69%), and faint blue bars indicate rain possible (5–39%). A "next rain" summary above the chart tells you when to expect the first meaningful precipitation.
The Past 24 Hours precipitation chart shows hourly rainfall totals from the last day so you can see what's already fallen.
Alerts are pulled directly from the National Weather Service every 60 seconds. When multiple alerts are active, they're sorted by severity so the most critical warning always appears first.
Tap any alert card to see the full NWS report text, including the affected area, effective and expiration times, and the issuing forecast office. A link to the complete report on weather.gov is included at the bottom of each detail view.
When multiple alerts are active simultaneously, they appear in this order: Tornado Emergency → PDS Tornado Warning → Observed Tornado Warning → Tornado Warning → Destructive SVR Warning → Severe Thunderstorm Warning → Flash Flood Warning → Flood Warning → Tornado Watch → SVR Watch → Flash Flood Watch → Flood Watch → Flood Advisory.
When severe weather has occurred near you, the Recent Storm Reports section automatically appears below the radar panel showing confirmed events within 75 miles of your location from the past 24 hours. It only shows up when there's something to report — on quiet days it stays hidden.
Reports are sourced directly from NWS Local Storm Reports (LSRs) — official records submitted by trained storm spotters, emergency managers, and law enforcement, then verified by NWS meteorologists. The following event types are included:
🌪 Tornado · 🌀 Funnel Cloud · 🌩 Wall Cloud · 🧊 Hail · 💨 Thunderstorm Wind Damage · 💨 Thunderstorm Wind Gust · 🌊 Flash Flood · 🌊 Flood · 🌬 Non-Thunderstorm Wind
Each report shows the event type, magnitude (hail size in inches, wind speed in mph), the reporting location, and the time it occurred. Reports refresh every 30 minutes automatically.
The radar panel loads the nearest NWS NEXRAD radar station automatically based on your location's forecast office (WFO). You can open it full-screen on weather.gov using the button below the radar view, or navigate to the full WFO page for additional products.
Each day shows a high/low, precipitation probability, and a condition summary. Tap any day card to expand it and see additional detail: feels-like range, total precipitation, rain and snow breakdown, max wind and gusts, UV index, and sunrise/sunset times.
The expanded view also shows a Precipitation Timing estimate — e.g. "Rain expected · 10 AM – 2 PM" or "Rain on and off throughout the day, starting around 9 AM" — derived from hourly model data. This is subject to change and shown with a disclaimer.
On days forecast as thunderstorms, the expanded view shows the SPC Convective Outlook risk level for Days 1–3, plus probabilistic tornado, hail, and wind percentages for Days 1–2. For Days 4–7, SPC categorical data isn't available, so only the model-derived condition is shown.
StormPulse pulls from multiple public, free, no-key-required data sources:
StormPulse is a personal project and is not affiliated with NOAA, NWS, or the Storm Prediction Center. Data is provided as-is. Always confirm severe weather information with official NWS sources.
StormPulse is a personal project currently in beta testing. It is not an official source of weather information and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the National Weather Service (NWS), NOAA, the Storm Prediction Center, or any government agency, news organization, or official weather provider.
Data displayed in this tool is sourced from publicly available third-party APIs including Open-Meteo, the NWS API, and the NOAA MapServer. While every effort is made to display this data accurately, no guarantees are made about the completeness, timeliness, or accuracy of any information shown.
This tool is intended as a supplementary reference only. Do not use StormPulse as your sole source of information during severe weather events. Always consult official NWS products, your local forecast office, and emergency management authorities when severe weather threatens your area.
By using this tool, you acknowledge that it is provided as-is without warranty of any kind, and that the developer assumes no liability for decisions made based on information displayed here.