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With summer comes sunshine, heat, thunderstorms and the heart of hurricane season. Computer users around the country often count on desktop weather clients like WeatherBug to provide a stream of up-to-the-minute information to help keep them informed about the day's changing conditions. WeatherBug recently enhanced its services for users on the move by extending WeatherBug Mobile, the wireless version of its desktop client, to BlackBerry and BREW-enabled phones and developing a system that delivers finely-tuned weather alerts to mobile handsets (via voice, SMS or e-mail) and pagers.

WeatherBug compiles its data through 8,000 tracking stations throughout the U.S. and alerts from the National Weather Service and the USPLN Lightning Network.

Just like WeatherBug on the PC, the mobile version is a standalone application that resides on a handset and receives live streaming local weather, severe weather alerts, detailed seven-day forecasts, animated local radar, and time-lapse weather camera images. RIM handhelds must run BlackBerry OS 4.02 or higher, and $39.99 gets you the software plus a one-year subscription. It is also available for JAVA and WAP-enabled mobile phones plus Windows Mobile Smartphones.

According to the company, the WeatherBug Smart Notification Weather Service (SNWS) generates, authorizes and delivers alerts to subscribers when severe weather (i.e. hurricanes, lightning, floods, wind gusts, tornadoes) is detected within a subscriber’s proximity by matching conditions with the user's exact location through cellular location based service (LBS) technology; far more precisely than traditional alerts, which are primarily zip-code based, and therefore static with an area of coverage from five to 30 or more miles.

The Service then formats the appropriate alert for the supported device (phone-voice, phone-SMS, e-mail and pager) and relays the notification to each individual, making the alerts more accurate and relevant, the company claims. And, unlike regular one-way, text alerts, SNWS supports two-way messages, providing the issuer a delivery status and user response.

"Traditional weather alerts services lack the accuracy and relevancy to meet the needs of modern businesses and public safety organizations," said WeatherBug President and CEO Bob Marshall. "These traditional services deliver alerts that are often far away, too early, too generic, too frequent or irrelevant to their actual location."

The service can also serve as a broader notification platform, enabling administrators and other officials to initiate their own alerts. "We are very pleased to have WeatherBug and Send Word Now Smart Notification Weather Service included in our arsenal of emergency management tools," said Jason Jackson, Wal-Mart's Director of Emergency Management."We believe these tools are necessary to generate warnings to our 3,800 stores on local weather conditions. A quicker notification time allows maximum time for proper preparations, which minimizes life safety concerns and mitigates impact to our bottom line."