KinwarnAbout
About Kinwarn
Kinwarn is a small, independent iPhone app that alerts you when a tornado, severe storm or flash flood warning covers your home or a family member’s home. It is not affiliated with the National Weather Service or NOAA.
Where the data comes from
- Warnings in the app: the NOAA Weather Wire Service feed that the National Weather Service sends to partners, checked against the National Weather Service alerts API.
- Warnings on this website: the National Weather Service alerts API (api.weather.gov), read by your browser about once a minute while the page is open. Watch outlines come from the National Weather Service map service.
- Radar and storm reports: NEXRAD radar and local storm reports from the National Weather Service, served by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet at Iowa State University.
- Risk outlooks and tornado history: the Storm Prediction Center.
- Storm history: NOAA’s Storm Events Database from the National Centers for Environmental Information.
- Base map: OpenFreeMap, with map data from OpenStreetMap contributors. Address search uses OpenStreetMap data.
How we count warnings for a place
When Kinwarn says a city had a number of tornado warnings, it counts the National Weather Service warning outlines that covered that city’s center point, using the warning archive of the Iowa Environmental Mesonet. A warning that covered other parts of the county but not the point is not counted.
What Kinwarn is not
- Not an official warning service. Warnings can be delayed by networks, phones or the data feed.
- Not a replacement for Wireless Emergency Alerts, NOAA Weather Radio, outdoor sirens or local officials. Keep them all.
- Not a forecaster. Kinwarn does not make its own warnings and does not change what the National Weather Service says. Summaries written by Kinwarn are labeled as ours.
Contact
Email hello@kinwarn.com. Read our privacy policy and terms.