One of our readers, Ron, asked me how he can get NOAA severe weather alerts on his BlackBerry. He was hoping for audio alerts but I could not find any solutions. On the other hand I did manage to find a few solutions that can be used for RSS, SMS, or email alerts.
You can go the simple route and use Weather.com’s free mobile SMS alerts. You can find out more at this link:
https://registration.weather.com/ursa/alerts/step1?from=svralrtpg&initAlerts=SVR
Your other choice is to use one of NOAA’s experimental RSS feeds by state or county:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/alerts/
You can also use an RSS to Email service to get these RSS alerts through email. Here are some options:
http://www.rssfwd.com/
http://www.feedblitz.com/
If you got he email route I would recommend adding the address to your exception rule in your profile to alert you in a different manner.
Let me know if you have a better solution for Ron…
DavidB Not Registered
Posted: May 27, 2008 at 9:01 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8830
I should dabble in this more but haven’t found the time yet.
I DO have National Hurricane Center in Viigo. Hourly Atlantic cyclone updates: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index-at.xml
I think there were a bunch of other RSS feeds at NHC (and NOAA).
Another thought: Check if your locale has an alert system (my City does, and it SMS’s citizens who sign up, for weather terrorism etc.). Since 9-11 and Katrina there has been tons of federal funds to Cities and Counties and States to set these sorts of systems up. If there isn’t a local one (for USA readers of course), you should be asking your politicians why you don’t have one!!!
Ron Not Registered
Posted: May 27, 2008 at 11:00 AM EST
Thanks for the info. I’m going to check with the local weather centers and see if they know anything also.
Gil Emery Not Registered
Posted: May 27, 2008 at 3:59 PM EST
There are services such as
http://www.stormnow.com/
That allow you to register what alerts you want to recieve and the counties/states that you wish to recieve them for.
Although I have not used this one recently, a few years ago I did have this service and was very happy with what they provided.
Jason Emerick Not Registered
Posted: May 29, 2008 at 6:44 PM EST
This is something I may look into adding to YWeather when I get a chance to look into it further.
I will keep you updated of any new additions to YWeather.
Jason Emerick