A SHARPER RADAR The radar now uses the national NEXRAD mosaic, which resolves individual storm cells at about 500 metres. The previous source stopped adding detail past county level, so zooming in magnified the picture rather than sharpening it. Storms that used to blur into one blob are separate cells now. FUTURE RADAR The radar timeline now carries on past the present. Drag it forward and the map keeps going for three hours, with every frame past now marked Forecast. The next hour is the radar itself, carried forward along the way the rain is actually moving, in five-minute steps. It is measured from the last two scans rather than modelled, so it is only minutes behind — but it only knows about rain that already exists, and it cannot tell that a storm is about to fade or build. After that it hands over to NOAA's forecast model, in fifteen-minute steps. The model does know that storms grow and die, but its run is a couple of hours old by the time anyone sees it. It puts storms roughly where and roughly when; a cell on screen is not a prediction of that cell. Neither is a scan of something that has happened. Turn the whole thing off under Radar Options. WILL IT RAIN, AND WHEN The forecast now opens with the answer instead of making you look for it: when rain next arrives, the chance at that hour, and how much is expected over the next day. The amount is new — the Weather Service publishes it, and the app had never asked for it. Light drizzle on the horizon does not count; it takes a real chance of real rain to say rain is coming. THE RADAR KEEPS ITSELF CURRENT The radar refreshes itself while you are watching it and again when you come back to the app, instead of showing whatever it loaded when you first opened the tab. A storm can no longer cross the county while the map sits still. THE TIME UNDER THE MAP IS THE RADAR'S The clock under the radar now reports when the scan was made, not when you are looking at it. Where a source will not say, the time is rounded down to the interval it is built on, so the radar never claims to be more current than it is. FEWER FALSE ALARMS On clear nights, radar picks up birds, insects and returns bent back to the ground by the air itself, and twice these were reported as rain on the way. Storm alerts now check NOAA's precipitation-type analysis before they fire, so an echo the Weather Service does not confirm as precipitation stays quiet. WHICH BUILD AM I ON Settings now ends with the version, the build number, and how this copy was installed. Worth quoting if you ever write in about a problem.

STORMS HEADING YOUR WAY StationDeck now watches the radar for you. When rain or a storm is on its way, the dashboard shows when it arrives, how heavy it will be and a one-hour strip of what's coming, measured from how the rain on the radar is actually moving. LOCK SCREEN COUNTDOWN When a warned storm or a heavy storm on the radar is due within 30 minutes, a countdown appears on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, showing where it is, which way it's moving and any hail or damaging wind. ALERTS THAT FOLLOW YOU With Instant Alerts on, get a notification when a storm or rain is heading for you, even with the app closed. Choose to watch your station, wherever you are, or both, in Settings → Storm Tracking. ON THE RADAR Warned storms now show their track: where they are and where they're heading over the next hour. RAIN & STORMS WIDGET A new widget for your Home Screen and Lock Screen shows the radar's next hour at a glance: "Rain in 18 min", when the heavy part arrives, and a strip of what's coming. HURRICANE ALERTS If your station — or you, if you've chosen that — falls inside a tropical storm or hurricane's forecast cone, you'll get an alert, and another if it strengthens into a hurricane. Storms threatening you are flagged on the Tropics page. ASK SIRI "Is rain coming in StationDeck?", "What's the weather at my station in StationDeck?" and "Any weather alerts in StationDeck?" — or add them to Shortcuts. SNOW, SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN Radar forecasts now tell you what's coming, not just when — detected from NOAA's radar analysis of rain, snow and hail. Snow shows in blue, a rain–snow mix in pink and freezing rain in purple. Ask Siri "Is snow coming in StationDeck?"

INSTANT ALERTS Turn on Instant Alerts in Settings and National Weather Service warnings for your station arrive within about a minute of being issued, even when the app is closed. TROPICS The Models tab has a new Tropics page with the National Hurricane Center's official tropical outlook map — Atlantic, Eastern Pacific or Central Pacific, in 2-day or 7-day. It picks up each new outlook as soon as the Hurricane Center posts it, including special outlooks between the regular updates. When a storm is active, see its forecast cone, winds, movement and distance from your station. Tap any map to see it full screen and pinch to zoom. 3-DAY FORECAST ON THE LARGE WIDGET Both large widgets now show the next three days along the bottom: high, low, sky and chance of rain. Widgets also keep their forecast current on their own, so they no longer show an old forecast when you haven't opened the app in a while. A CLEANER DASHBOARD The large title at the top of the dashboard is gone, so your conditions start higher on the screen. ALSO Radar settings now sync between your devices, and there's a new switch in Settings to turn iCloud sync on or off.

NEW ALERTS TAB Every active National Weather Service alert in your state, with the ones covering your station first. Storm-based warnings show how far away they are, and you can filter out the alert types you don't care about — including a one-tap hide for marine and coastal products. WARNINGS ON THE RADAR Tornado, severe thunderstorm, flash flood and marine warnings are outlined on the radar in the Weather Service's own colours. Tap an outline for the full warning. SMOOTHER RADAR Radar animation no longer flickers or loads in patches between frames, and it keeps playing while you pan the map. New zoom in and out buttons, too. NAME YOUR STATIONS Rename any station from the dashboard, or rename saved forecast places with a long press. Plus a new icon, and widgets that update without using up your station's request limit.

The app is now StationDeck. Same app, clearer name — it's a dashboard for your weather station, so it may as well say so. New icon to match. WEATHER UNDERGROUND Point the app at any public Weather Underground station — usually a neighbour's back garden rather than an airport twenty miles away, and it reports rain, solar and UV that official stations don't. Needs your own WU API key, which they issue free to anyone who uploads a station. FORECAST HIGH AND LOW The dashboard and both widgets now show the forecast high and low, labelled with the day they belong to, so a low shown at 9pm is obviously tonight's rather than something you have to work out. FIXED Severe weather alerts could stop appearing if your station briefly went offline. National Weather Service alerts have nothing to do with your station, and no longer wait on it. The Forecast tab now uses the temperature unit you picked instead of always showing Fahrenheit.