The Weather App says dress for the mid-70s
Weather Safety is one of the most important variables in RV life and camping. It is critical that RVers stay weather aware and have a plan for what they will do to stay safe if severe weather strikes. We share some of the tools we use to stay weather aware and steps we take to be prepared in the event of a weather emergency. Here are a few of those.
Tools We Use To Track The Weather
Apps can be helpful and there are a lot of weather apps available. We've found some to be more reliable and accurate than others. Our current go-to weather apps include Storm Radar, Accuweather, and WeatherBug. We've also received strong recommendations from folks regarding the NOAA Weather App and Highway Weather. In order for the apps to work properly and provide reliable alerts, you need to do 2 things: 1) allow at least your favorite one to run in the background on your phone or device, and 2) Open the app and let it find your new location every time you move to a new campsite. If you don't take these steps, you either won't receive alerts of approaching weather or you'll get notifications of weather events where you used to be instead of where you currently are.
Sometimes you might be in an area where there is little or no cell signal. In that case, apps won't help you. In that case, it's a good idea to carry a weather radio. Today's portable weather radios typically offer traditional AM/FM radio signals as well as a band of weather station radio signals. Depending on how far you are from the radio stations, the signal may or may not be that great, but we can typically bring in some information. And in the case of weather, some information is better than no information. Here's the weather radio we carry: FosPower Emergency Solar Hand Crank Portable Radio. This small, easy to carry weather radio can run off of batteries, hand crank or solar power. It also includes a flashlight and a phone charging port, as well as a carabiner to easily attach it to a backpack.
Another way we use to stay aware of the weather coming our way requires zero technology... The park rangers, visitor centers, and campground bulletin boards can be a great source of weather information. We really found this to be true and incredibly helpful while camping inside several US National Parks. Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park all provided daily and weekly weather forecasts in the campgrounds and visitor centers. It was a really simple way for us to know what was ahead.
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