You'll know first.
Before It Strikes warns you minutes — sometimes hours — before lightning strikes, pushes official NWS alerts the instant they're issued, and tells you the exact moment it's safe to go back out. Hi-res 3D radar, nationwide. Free, on iOS.
Free on iOS — nationwide lightning prediction, official NWS warnings, and hi-res 3D radar, available now. Press & partnerships: [email protected]
We saw it coming.
In the June 21, 2026 severe outbreak, we replayed the actual National Weather Service radar and GOES satellite lightning data and measured how far ahead our radar signature appeared before each storm's first lightning strike — across 100 storms over Indiana & Illinois.
Based on a backtest of a single severe outbreak (June 21, 2026), replaying real NWS radar & GOES satellite data across ~100 storms. A backtest of one event — not a guarantee of future performance, and never a substitute for official warnings or lightning-safety guidance.
Zoom past the county line — down to your street.
Crisp, GPU-smooth radar you can tilt into 3D and zoom until you see your own block — your buildings, your backyard, your kid's school — with the storm moving right over it. Not a colored blob over your city. Your actual neighborhood.
- High-resolution base reflectivity, buttery smooth
- Tilt into 3D with real buildings & terrain
- Zoom to street level, where building data is available
Fly anywhere. Watch any storm.
This isn't a one-location app. Pan and zoom to any storm in the country — check the line bearing down on family three states away, follow a hurricane's feeder bands, or tap into any of 150+ live radar sites. The whole sky, in your hand.
- Every county, every NWS office, every storm
- 150+ live WSR-88D radar sites, one tap away
- Storm Center re-centers on the nearest radar automatically
Your sky, right now.
Open the app and your local conditions are already there — temperature and feels-like, wind speed and direction, humidity, dewpoint and pressure — read from the nearest live surface observation and refreshed continuously. The everyday weather check that also happens to be watching for the worst.
- Temp, feels-like, wind, humidity, dewpoint & pressure at a glance
- Pulled from the nearest live surface observation (METAR)
- Always current — follows you and updates as new obs land
Know the storm that's headed at you.
The moment a tracked storm cell is overhead — or on a path to reach you — the home screen surfaces it: how many minutes until it arrives, and exactly what it's carrying. Tornado, wind and hail threats in plain words, with the radar signatures right underneath, so you know whether this one is serious before it's overhead.
- Storm-inbound heads-up with minutes-to-arrival
- Tornado / wind / hail threat — in plain language
- Radar signatures: rotation, lightning rate & expected hail
- Driven by real-time storm-cell tracking
Every storm, decoded.
One screen reads the atmosphere for you. A single 1–5 threat level fuses official risk, active warnings, and live atmospheric instability into one honest number. Below it: how fast lightning is firing, how close the nearest strike is, where the next six hours are headed, and every storm report as it lands.
- Fused 1–5 threat level from official risk, warnings & live instability
- Live lightning rate with jump detection — the spike before it intensifies
- Nearest strike, last-20-minute count & next-6-hour severe trend
- Local Storm Reports — real hail, wind & flooding near you
The timer that resets with every strike.
When lightning lands within ten miles, a thirty-minute countdown starts. Every new nearby strike pushes it back to thirty — exactly the 30-30 rule the pros use. When the ring empties, you're genuinely clear. It's motion-aware, so a storm moving away never cries wolf.
- Restarts on every strike within your radius
- Honest "all-clear" — the moment it's actually safe
- Blends observed strikes with forecast guidance
The countdown lives on your Lock Screen.
The instant lightning's near, a Live Activity spins up — so the shelter countdown is right there on your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, ticking down all storm long. No unlocking, no opening the app. Just glance, and know how long to stay put.
- Real-time countdown on the Lock Screen & Dynamic Island
- Updates in the background as new strikes land
- Clears itself the moment the storm passes
The all-clear, at a glance.
The shelter countdown mirrors straight to your Apple Watch — a glowing ring that drains 30:00 → 0, resetting to thirty with every nearby strike. No phone, no unlocking. Just lift your wrist to know whether it's safe to head back out.
- The same 30-minute all-clear ring, on watchOS
- Restarts on every strike within your radius
- A clean ALL CLEAR the moment the sky settles
A heads-up before the first bolt.
We don't just react to lightning — we watch for it. A Lightning Watch warns you when your area is going electric. Then, as a storm closes in, you get the distance and speed: "about 16 miles away, moving in at 27 mph." Time to get everyone inside — before the first strike, not after.
- Lightning Watch when conditions turn favorable
- Approaching alerts with distance & closing speed
- Radar-derived first-flash detection
The whole warning — in plain English.
When the National Weather Service issues a warning for a place you've saved, you get all of it — not just a banner. A live expiration countdown, the exact hazard tags, what's actually happening, the one thing to do right now, and every county in the path.
- Live “expires in” countdown on every warning
- Impact-based hazard tags: tornado, wind, hail, flash flood
- Plain-language “take action now” guidance
- Every affected county, listed by name
Mount it. Glance at it. Trust it.
Quick View turns an iPad into a big-screen lightning board: a giant all-clear countdown readable from across the deck, a clear heads-up when lightning is moving in, and live radar underneath. Built for camp directors, pool managers, coaches, and event staff who have to make the call.
- Giant, glanceable all-clear countdown
- "Lightning approaching" the moment it matters
- Animated radar — perfect for a wall-mounted kiosk
Go Pro. However you show up.
One person with a phone, or an organization with a dozen fields — there's a Pro tier that fits how you keep people safe.
$7/mo
The most precise lightning we offer — the licensed, ground-based strike feed, right in the app. Cancel anytime.
Get Before It Strikes Pro- Sub-kilometer ground-based strikes on your map
- Forecasted all-clear — know when it's safe to head back out
- Bolt-from-the-blue alerts for strikes outside the storm
- Charging-cloud awareness before the first flash
One base plan. Unlimited everything.
Draw the areas you watch, put every coach, lifeguard, and parent on the alert list, and mount a live board wherever your people gather. One flat base for the whole organization — add precise lightning per user as you need it.
Before It Strikes Pro
$49/mo
Base — the whole organization
+ $7/mo per user · precise lightning
One flat base covers the whole organization — unlimited areas, members, and alerts. Add precise, ground-based lightning only for the people who need it.
- Unlimited monitored areas
- Unlimited members & alert recipients
- Push & email alerts — unlimited
- Green / yellow / red safety tiers
- Live radar operations board
- Venue display mode for wall-mounted screens
- Automatic alerts when a warning covers a site
- Immutable alert log for compliance
- Webhook / horn & PA integration
- SSO / SAML & onboarding available
- Precise lightning — $7/mo per user
- SMS alerts — usage-based add-on
Compare: a single incumbent site runs ~$2,200/yr plus hardware. One flat $49/mo base covers every field, pool, and campus — add precise lightning per user as you grow.
Everything watching the sky for you.
Behind the headline features, Before It Strikes ingests the full National Weather Service product suite — nationwide, in real time.
SPC Convective Outlooks
Categorical & probabilistic severe risk for days 1–3, drawn right on your map.
Watch Boxes
Tornado & severe-thunderstorm watch parallelograms the moment SPC issues them.
Mesoscale Discussions
The forecaster's early read on what's developing — often before watches drop.
Local Storm Reports
Real hail, wind, and flood reports from the field, plotted the instant they're filed.
Follow-Me Alerts
Your location travels with you — alerts track where you actually are, not just home.
Save Every Place
Home, the lake house, the kids' school — watch them all at once.
Radar Rotation
Low-level rotation detection on Doppler velocity — extra eyes on spin-up.
Nationwide & Free
Every county, every radar site, no subscription and no paywall on safety.
From the sky to your pocket, in seconds.
The same authoritative data the professionals use — ingested nationwide, scored against your locations, and delivered the instant it matters.
Ingest
Official feeds — NWS VTEC warnings, SPC outlooks, GOES-GLM satellite lightning, and 150+ WSR-88D radars — the instant they publish.
Analyze
Everything is parsed, cross-referenced against your saved places, and scored — storm cells tracked, threats ranked in real time.
Predict
A blend of radar, satellite and forecast signals combines into a first-strike heads-up and each storm's ETA.
Alert
The one alert that matters reaches your phone, Lock Screen and wrist the second it counts — and stays quiet when it doesn't.
Official NWS alerts, the instant they're issued.
Straight from the National Weather Service VTEC feed — for home, the lake house, the kids' school, anywhere you save. Loud when it counts, silent when it doesn't.
The things people ask first.
Is this a replacement for official NWS warnings?
No — and it never pretends to be. Official National Weather Service warnings are always the source of truth, shown exactly as issued. Our derived layers (lightning risk, storm scoring, rotation detection) are supplemental situational awareness — never a substitute for an official warning or lightning-safety guidance.
How can you warn me before lightning strikes?
We continuously read a blend of radar, satellite and forecast signals for the patterns that tend to precede a storm's first flash. In our backtest that produced an average heads-up of 27 minutes — but it's a heads-up, not a guarantee. When in doubt, seek shelter.
Does it work everywhere in the U.S.?
Yes. Before It Strikes is national by design — every county, every NWS office, and 150+ live WSR-88D radar sites. Save any place, or let it follow wherever you are.
Will it drain my battery?
No. Alerts are push-driven, the Lock Screen countdown uses the system Live Activity timer, and background updates are lightweight. You get the watching without the battery cost.
Is there an Apple Watch app?
Yes — the shelter countdown mirrors to your wrist as a glowing ring that resets with every nearby strike, so you can tell whether it's safe to head back out with a glance.
What does it cost, and where do I get it?
It's free — no subscription and no paywall on safety. It's available now on the App Store, on iOS. Download it here.
All of it. Free for personal use.
No subscription, no paywall on safety. Hi-res 3D radar, official warnings, lightning watches, the shelter timer, the Lock-Screen Live Activity, and the big-screen view — every bit of it, free for personal use. Available now on the App Store — thank you to everyone who helped test it.
Free on iOS. Press & partnerships: [email protected]