Spotter Tools Pro: Storm Radar

RADAR STARTS FASTER This release is mostly about the app getting out of its own way. • Archive loops build about a third faster and start playing sooner • A loop frame downloads only the part of the file it needs, and unpacks only the tilt it paints, instead of the whole scan • Six core phones get a second decode worker rather than grinding through a loop on one • Phones with memory to spare keep more of the loop. The budget used to be one flat number, so a large phone would thin a two hour loop down to thirteen frames with gigabytes going spare • Opening a site paints the real radar sooner. The first image was often a Level III picture up to a minute older than the Level 2 data already waiting STORMS IN 3D, BUILT FOR YOU The 3D storm volume arrived last release and your device had to build it. Now our servers build it and send it down ready to draw. • It appears almost immediately rather than after a full local scan. If no prepared volume is available for your site, the app quietly builds it locally as before • Your radar site and the national mosaic have their own opacity sliders, so you can keep the mosaic sheer for context and your own radar solid • Less banding inside the volume, so a storm reads as a solid body rather than a stack of shells • Debris and rotation still need the local scan, so on a fresh site the storm can appear before its highlights SPC OUTLOOK ALERTS ARE ABOUT YOU Outlook notifications were firing on the highest risk anywhere in the country, so a moderate risk in Nebraska sent a Tennessee user a banner quoting Nebraska's numbers, and tapping it showed no outlook on the map. • Outlooks are now matched against your own watch zones, and the alert describes the risk over each of them • Tapping one turns the outlook layer on and flies you to the strongest zone • A nationwide watch zone no longer means the whole country for outlooks. Warnings are unchanged, and there is a setting if you want the old behaviour • Outlooks that already expired no longer arrive after a background restart THE MAP TURNS WHEN YOU MEAN IT Two finger twist arrived last release and fired too easily, so a pinch with a wobble in it left the map slightly turned. • A turn now takes a deliberate twist, and nothing jumps when it engages • Lifting one finger can no longer turn a zoom into a rotation • There is a lock button if you would rather it never turned. The detent at north is unchanged and Chaser Mode still locks north up FORECAST • Every period carries its date, on the rail cards and in the list • Wind is on the cards, with a rising or falling temperature arrow when the office flags one • Rain chance is always drawn, so a dry day between wet ones reads as 0% • The hourly strip labels the day at the start and at every midnight FIXES • The map could freeze with cameras on. Drawing thousands of cameras shared a thread with the interface; it now happens off to the side and pauses in the background • Four sliders could paint a red error panel over the settings section they were in • Radar could stick after switching products with two views open, or leave a worker running after you left the screen • A first launch with no location permission and no home set opened on the middle of the ocean, and now opens on the country