One of the most popular application categories ubiquitous and that is present in the Smartphones of almost all users are the ones that They offer weather forecasts. Its popularity is so great that in the app stores today there are dozens of options to choose from and this week a new alternative was added. This is “SMN: Tiempo y Pronóstico”, the app that collects information about the weather and It offers short and medium term forecasts. prepared by experts from National Metereological Service (SMN). And, as they assured during its launch, this application has features and data that differentiate of its numerous competition.
What are these unique benefits? As explained by Dr. Celeste Saulo, director of the SMN, “the most important thing is that the data displayed by the app is collected by our network of weather stations and updated every sixty minutes”. In addition, the information displayed on the screen is georeferenced and explicit how far away the user is from the weather station that took the temperature, pressure, humidity, winds, etc.
Obviously the application quickly and clearly offers the status current of the weather, with updated measurement of temperature, thermal sensation, humidity, atmospheric pressure, direction and speed of the wind and visibility. And a large icon with the cloudiness status.
But, in addition, the app offers notifications and alerts Short term (PCA) with warnings for the imminence of storms, heavy rains, snowfalls and zonda wind, a type of wind characteristic of certain Argentine geographical areas. These situations, which are part of the Early Warning System (HE SAT), are also coded by colors so that the user quickly understands the level of risk. According to Saulo, to prepare these warnings, the interpretations of what the images of the meteorological radars show are added. And another specific difference is that for the generation of alerts, the SMN worked with Civil Defense experts and firefighters from different towns and provinces, so that the alerts are really adjusted to a dangerous situation that, in each geography, can be different
On the other hand, the application offers a detailed forecast of what can happen with the weather in the next three days with a high degree of detail and a full estimate for the next seven days of the week.
During the presentation, Saulo commented that: “this app was a debt to use since they had been asking us for it for a long time. It took us more than six months to design, develop and test it as we wanted to achieve two objectives: to offer information that was different from other applications on the market and to make the data and interpretations easy to understand. And for that, a lot of work was done on a friendly interface”.
There will be changes in the future
As with other applications, the idea of its developers is to go updating its features throughout the months. “We plan to offer updated satellite and radar images from the app for users interested in accessing this material,” said the director. They will also develop a widget to make it easy to view information on the home screen, without even having to open the app.
But the great bet of the next versions will be to add a contribution to the trend called “citizen science”. These are “citizen reports”, a facility that will allow any user registered in the application to provide information or photographs about what is happening with the weather in the place where they are. In this way, it will be possible to add information about what is happening in real time, in many more geographical locations. Of course, these collaborative “inputs” will be evaluated by forecasters and eventually used to improve forecasts and reports.
The weather app is free and you can download it from the Google Play app store. It works on Android 10 onwards, and on the IOS App Store.
Differences with other similar applications
◆ It is an application gratuitous. It works on smartphones with Android 10 system and also on iPhone.
◆ forecasts seven days for each city.
◆ Usage official information of the NMS network for forecasts.
◆ Genres alerts and warnings georeferenced to 24, 48 and 72 hours.
◆ Broadcast weather hazard warnings short-term valid for one to three hours.
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