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RadarBug is a weather and storm-awareness map that brings animated radar, lightning activity, National Weather Service alerts, National Hurricane Center tracking, and local forecasts together in one interactive view, so you can check conditions in one place instead of switching between several apps.
The goal is to answer one question quickly: what's happening with the weather right now, near me? Instead of checking radar in one app, warnings in another, and a forecast in a third, RadarBug puts current radar, active alerts, nearby lightning, and hurricane tracking on a single continuously-updating map — useful for a quick check before heading out, and for an always-on display that keeps a household aware as severe weather develops.
The settings button opens layer toggles and base map options; the re-center button jumps the map back to your current location; the home button jumps to a saved home location, and a press-and-hold on it saves whatever view is currently on screen. A mute button temporarily silences lightning alert notifications without turning the lightning layer itself off.
Setting a home location keeps the map, and any lightning proximity alerts, anchored to a fixed place — useful for watching conditions over your house rather than wherever your device happens to be. Once a home is set, lightning alerts are measured from that point instead of your current location, and one tap on the home button always returns the map there.
A home location, active layers, radar look-back, and map style are all remembered between visits, so returning to RadarBug — or a dedicated tablet display running it continuously — opens right back to the view you left it in.
When enabled, lightning alerts can be configured with an alert radius and an aggregation window: the first nearby strike raises an immediate notification, and further strikes inside the radius are rolled into a periodic storm-update digest until activity quiets down. This keeps a busy, active storm from generating a notification for every single strike.
RadarBug's alerts are a proximity notification, not a substitute for official safety guidance. For that, the gold standard comes from government meteorology and public health agencies: NOAA's National Weather Service, the primary authority on lightning science, real-time storm tracking, and outdoor safety protocols, and originator of the "When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!" standard; the CDC, for indoor safety and medical first-aid steps if someone is struck; and the National Lightning Safety Council, an independent group of lightning safety experts and meteorologists with detailed statistics and outdoor recreation guidelines.
The map's National Hurricane Center layer shows a storm's forecast cone, track, and position, plus any NWS watches and warnings in effect. For preparedness and safety guidance beyond what the map itself shows, these are the agencies to rely on:
Family & home preparedness: Ready.gov (FEMA) is the gold-standard portal for building an emergency supply kit, knowing your evacuation zone, securing home infrastructure, and writing a family disaster plan. The American Red Cross offers hurricane preparation checklists, an emergency shelter finder during an active storm, and post-storm recovery assistance.
Public health, sanitation & generator safety: the CDC is the primary source for post-storm health hazards, including safe generator use (carbon monoxide prevention), floodwater contamination, mold cleanup, and food/water safety during a power outage.
The optional red tide layer plots recent NOAA HABSOS water-sample results along the coast. Red tide (a bloom of the algae Karenia brevis) can affect air quality and seafood safety near the coastline:
Radar imagery is primarily sourced from Iowa State University's Mesonet, with a RainViewer fallback if that feed is unavailable. Alerts and hurricane tracking come from NOAA/NWS and the National Hurricane Center. Lightning activity comes from Blitzortung. Red tide data comes from NOAA's HABSOS. Forecasts come from Open-Meteo and the National Weather Service. Google Maps Platform supplies the interactive base map.
Because every setting is remembered per device, RadarBug also works well as an always-on display — a spare tablet mounted in a kitchen, garage, or entryway, configured once and left running. The Android tablet setup guide and iPad setup guide cover keeping the screen awake, dimming it at night, and hiding browser and navigation chrome so the map fills the screen.
The radar layer uses the same color scale as official National Weather Service radar products, with an adjustable look-back from a single latest frame up to 30 minutes of recent history in 5-minute steps, and an opacity slider to blend it against the base map underneath. If the primary radar source is temporarily unavailable, a notice appears on the map and a backup source can be used so the display doesn't go blank during an outage.
RadarBug is a situational-awareness tool, not a substitute for official forecasts or emergency alerts. Always follow warnings, evacuation orders, and instructions issued by the National Weather Service and local authorities. Weather data can be delayed, incomplete, or briefly unavailable due to network conditions or provider outages, so it should never be treated as the sole source of information during an active severe weather event.
See Documentation for a full guide to map controls and layers, About for data sources and limitations, or Contact to reach the publisher.