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Support

Help, FAQs, and contact details for Storm Window.

Storm Window answers one practical question: when is the lower-risk window to be outside? Every hour is scored for outdoor risk: lightning, storms, wind, heat stress, cold, air quality, official active alerts, and activity-relevant hazards. Pro can tune that scoring for specific activities. Need a hand? Start below, or email us any time.

Contact us

Questions, feedback, or a bug to report? Email support@StormWindow.SiPhy.com and we’ll get back to you. To help us help you, please include your device model, iOS/watchOS version, and the app version (shown at the bottom of the app’s About screen).

Frequently asked questions

What are the main tabs for?

Now is the decision screen: current verdict, how long the usable window lasts, Best Time Today, why conditions change, and Outdoor Session controls. Forecast is the detail screen: daily risk charts, Factors & Conditions, hourly inspection, precipitation, wind, air quality, UV, and other context. Plans is for Pro+ future commitments such as tee times, races, outdoor work shifts, practices, or swim meets, with forecast trend, confidence, primary concern, alternate-start guidance, and Plan alerts. Maps opens focused Lightning and Wind maps for spatial safety context; Lightning is recent/current context, while Wind can look ahead over forecast hours. For a task-oriented walkthrough, see Getting Started in the User Guide.

What do the colors and the headline mean?

The iPhone home screen shows a daily risk chart for Today, Tomorrow, and an additional following day when risk, lightning, or alert context makes it useful. Each bar or capsule scores one hour for outdoor risk: green is low risk, yellow means use caution, orange means unsafe, and red is dangerous. Bars use height to show relative severity within those categories; capsule dots keep the chart focused on the hourly category pattern. Swipe left or right, or tap a day, to change the focused chart. A thin NWS overlay appears only when an official alert is more cautious than matching local data; if the matching local value is unavailable, the alert is treated as the available source instead of a mismatch. The headline is your plan in plain language, for example, “Low-risk until Tue 10:30 AM.” It ends a low-risk period a little before storms arrive, because lightning can strike well ahead of the rain. See Understanding Risk for the canonical risk explanation.

What is the Factors & Conditions panel?

Below the daily risk chart, an expandable Factors & Conditions panel graphs the same hours a different way. Factors shows hourly trend charts for whichever signals are actively driving or explaining the current rating — Wind (speed and gusts, with directional arrows), Heat, Storms, Air Quality, and, for beach and water profiles, Marine and Cold Water — plus Alerts, showing only the ones with relevant data for your activity and putting active risk drivers first. Conditions shows informational trend charts — Precipitation, Temperature, Sky, UV, and Comfort — that add context but never change the lower-risk window. Free includes an interactive preview: you can expand the panel, switch Factors/Conditions, and swipe between chart pages while the chart remains behind a Pro overlay. Paired-line pages such as Wind Speed/Gusts and Temperature/Feels Like keep both lines visible while highlighting the focused line. Storm Window Pro and Pro+ unlock full chart inspection. See Factors vs. Conditions for the full distinction.

Does “Low risk” mean sunny?

No. The color is always about outdoor safety risk, never just the sky. A low-risk hour can still be cloudy or lightly raining, so the actual conditions ride alongside the verdict (for example, “Low risk · Partly cloudy”). You can turn on an optional rain & snow overlay in Settings; it’s informational only and never changes the lower-risk window.

How does it decide?

It blends atmospheric instability (CAPE, CIN, and lifted index), rain chance, wind gusts, heat index, estimated WBGT-like heat stress, wind chill, air quality, and, in the United States, the National Weather Service’s thunderstorm probability and active alerts. Beach and water profiles also use marine wave height and sea-surface temperature. Forecast data comes from Open-Meteo, Open-Meteo Marine, and the U.S. National Weather Service. See How Storm Window Thinks for the guide explanation.

For background on the published guidance behind the default activity thresholds, see Threshold Sources and the guide’s Data & Methodology section.

UV and rain/snow are shown as planning advisories only. They help with sun protection and comfort, but they do not close the lower-risk window by themselves. For mountain profiles (Hiker, Climber, Tactical Training), locations above about 5,000 ft also show an altitude-illness advisory banded by elevation — also informational, and it never closes the window on its own.

How do the Lightning Map and Wind Map work?

Storm Window uses maps for focused safety context, not as a general weather browser. The Maps tab opens Lightning Map and Wind Map directly, and if the Home risk pill includes a map icon, tapping it opens the most relevant map for the current hazard.

Lightning Map shows recent radar, NOAA lightning activity density, Storm Window live-lightning context, distance rings, and a short radar-motion timeline so you can judge whether nearby storm activity is moving toward or away from your location. It is recent observed context, not a forward-looking lightning forecast.

Wind Map uses NOAA/NWS forecast context for wind speed, gusts, optional radar, and direction over the next few hours. The Arrows option draws sparse native direction arrows from sampled numerical wind data. Pro users can choose Flow, which animates particles from backend NOAA HRRR U/V wind vectors in the supported contiguous-U.S. HRRR coverage area. If Flow is unavailable for the selected area or forecast time, Storm Window shows a status message instead of fabricated animation. The map can help you see whether wind is improving or getting worse nearby, but Storm Window’s displayed point mph values, activity thresholds, and low-risk-window verdict still come from the app’s existing point forecast and risk engine. See Maps, Lightning Map, and Wind Map in the User Guide.

What are Activity profiles?

Profiles tune the forecast to what you’re doing outside. A cyclist is more sensitive to wind gusts; a golfer, beachgoer, swimmer, paddler, or boater gets an earlier lightning cutoff and treats a weaker thunder chance as a threat, because they’re exposed and slow to reach shelter. Beach and water profiles also apply wave-height and cold-water thresholds scaled to the activity or craft. Heads-up cards and hour-detail rows are filtered by activity, so a runner does not see beach, wave, or water-temperature details that do not apply. Built-in profiles now include Everyday, Walker, Runner, Cyclist, Hiker, Climbing, Golfer, Tennis / Pickleball, Beach, Pool & Swim, Open Water Swim, Small Boat, Sailboat, Powerboat, Offshore Boat, Paddler, Angler, Outdoor Worker, Coach / Sports, Field / Team Sports, Snow Sports, and Tactical Training. Activity profiles also include intensity and typical duration, so a high-intensity two-hour ride can be treated differently than a short low-intensity walk. Free includes Everyday, Walker, Runner, Cyclist, Stroller, and Using a Baby Carrier. Storm Window Pro adds the remaining built-in profiles plus custom Activity profiles. See Activity Profiles in the User Guide for the task-oriented version.

Can I watch more than one activity at the same location?

Yes. A single place can matter for more than one activity — golf and swimming at the same lake house, for example. Free lets you watch up to 2 activities per saved location, Pro expands that to 5, and Pro+ is unlimited. Once a location has more than one watched activity, a chip strip appears on Home under the location name; tap a chip to see that activity’s own verdict without changing your default activity. You can add or remove watched activities from the Locations screen (swipe a location ▸ Activities), from the Activity picker (tap the small circle next to any activity), or from the Activity comparison panel below the risk chart. A single approaching hazard produces one notification naming every watched activity it actually affects, never one push per activity.

Can I create custom Activity profiles? (Pro)

Yes. Storm Window Pro lets you create custom profiles for your own activities, such as a long run, road ride, course walk, open-water swim, tactical training day, beach day, or outdoor shift. When creating a custom profile, choose the activity type first; Storm Window then shows the name, intensity, typical duration, and only the bounded tolerance controls that are relevant to that activity. Custom profiles can tune heat index, estimated heat stress, air quality, wind, waves, cold water, and low-risk-window rules when those factors apply. These settings personalize the hazard state and recommended window without changing the displayed weather values.

Custom profiles keep safety guardrails in place. They do not let you disable lightning safety, ignore severe weather, or edit raw storm-model thresholds such as CAPE, CIN, lifted index, or thunder probability.

Why are Air Temperature Tolerance and Heat Stress Index Tolerance different numbers? (Pro)

Custom Activity profiles show two separate heat tolerances, and their default numbers look backwards at first glance — Air Temperature Tolerance’s caution/unsafe/severe values are typically higher than Heat Stress Index Tolerance’s for the same profile. That’s intentional: the two settings aren’t measuring heat on the same scale.

Air Temperature Tolerance is based on the forecast’s felt-air temperature (Open-Meteo’s apparent temperature), which already accounts for humidity and wind — it’s the same kind of number most weather apps mean by “feels like.” Storm Window only falls back to it for hours where there isn’t enough forecast data (temperature and humidity) to estimate the fuller heat-stress value below.

Heat Stress Index Tolerance is an estimated Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT)–like value. WBGT starts from the same idea as “feels like” — temperature, humidity, and wind — but adds one more input “feels like” doesn’t have at all: direct solar radiation. That’s literally the “globe” in Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, a globe thermometer that measures radiant heat from the sun. WBGT also weighs humidity’s effect on your body’s ability to cool itself (evaporative cooling via sweat) more heavily than a typical feels-like calculation does. The combined effect is that WBGT reads on a genuinely different, numerically lower scale than feels-like temperature for the same real-world danger — a WBGT of 88°F already represents serious heat stress, even though the number alone looks mild next to a 95°F feels-like reading.

This isn’t a Storm Window quirk. Real safety guidelines set WBGT action limits in the 80s–90s Fahrenheit: for example, ATP/USTA tennis rules call for a mandatory cooling break around 86°F WBGT and suspend play around 90°F WBGT — numbers Storm Window’s own Heat Stress Index defaults are set to match. See Threshold Sources for the underlying NWS Heat Index and WBGT references.

What is the Personal Profile? (Pro)

The Personal Profile is shared across your activity profiles. You can optionally set an age range, heat tolerance (Low, Typical, High, or Very High), air-quality sensitivity, and fitness level. Storm Window keeps the displayed forecast values unchanged, such as Heat Index 96°F, estimated Heat Stress 86°F, or AQI 54, but can classify the risk differently for your selected activity and personal settings. Fitness level and a higher heat tolerance only affect heat and estimated heat-stress tolerance; they do not loosen lightning, official alerts, rip current or beach hazards, wind, or air-quality rules. See Locations and Activities for how activity and profile choices shape the verdict.

What does “Best Time Today” do? (Pro)

Best Time Today, on the Home screen, finds the best low-risk window for your selected activity sized to how long you plan to be out — not just whether it’s safe right now. It grades the window Excellent to Poor with a quality score, gives a start-by time (the latest you can begin and still finish before conditions turn), suggests a next-best alternative when one exists, and explains the deterministic reason the window ends. Below the risk chart, the Pro Activity comparison panel shows what else is workable right now across a range of activities — tap one you’re not already watching to add it as a watched activity at the current location. An Apple Watch outdoor session can keep the same risk and remaining-time information on the Lock Screen or Dynamic Island once you start it. See Best Time Today and Start by in the User Guide.

What are preferred activity times? (Pro)

Preferred activity times tell Storm Window when a recommendation is actually useful for that activity. A walker might prefer morning and evening, while an outdoor worker might care about a longer daytime span. Best Time Today uses those preferences when ranking otherwise low-risk windows, but it will still explain when the best available safe window falls outside the preferred range.

What does the quality score mean? (Pro)

The quality score ranks low-risk planning windows for the selected activity and duration. It considers fit, comfort, timing, and how cleanly the window avoids approaching hazards. It is separate from the safety verdict: a lower-quality window is not automatically unsafe, and an unsafe hour cannot become safe because the score is high.

What does forecast confidence mean?

Confidence describes timing uncertainty, not danger. Lead time, stale cached data, missing critical fields, sparse hourly coverage, or lower forecast support can reduce confidence. Storm Window keeps the risk verdict unchanged, but surfaces Moderate or Low confidence so you know when to treat start-by, next-best, or Plan-monitoring guidance as less certain. See Forecast Confidence for the guide explanation.

What is an Outdoor Session? (Pro)

Outdoor Session keeps the current activity window visible while you are out. It can show the verdict, the remaining low-risk time, and upcoming change on iPhone, Apple Watch, the Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, widgets, and Control Center actions where supported. On supported Live Activity surfaces, +15 min extends the planned session and End stops the shared Lock Screen/Dynamic Island session. Sessions use cached forecast guidance and local device state; they are not a workout tracker and do not collect pace, distance, calories, or heart-rate data. See Outdoor Session and Live Activity in the User Guide.

What does Storm Window Pro+ add?

Pro+ adds planning and monitoring: up to 25 additional saved locations on top of Follow My Location (included free on every plan), proactive monitoring of near-term conditions and future Plans, window-change and best-window alerts, Plan forecast changed alerts, shareable low-risk-window snapshots and Plan cards, and Siri/Shortcuts and Control Center access to Plan status. Apple Intelligence on supported devices can explain an hourly rating, teach what individual factors mean, answer “Should I Go?” for the current period, explain why a recommended window was chosen, summarize the 3-day outlook, and explain why guidance changed since the last forecast update. These are explanations of Storm Window’s deterministic assessment, not separate weather forecasts.

What if my device doesn’t support Apple Intelligence?

You still get every Pro+ feature. Storm Window shows a notice before you subscribe if Apple Intelligence isn’t available on your device, and every AI-explained feature automatically falls back to Storm Window’s own plain-language explanation of the same deterministic rating and factors — nothing is locked out, only the phrasing changes.

Does Apple Intelligence decide whether conditions are safe?

No. Storm Window calculates risk from weather data, activity profile, personal settings, and official alerts first. Apple Intelligence receives already-classified factors and explains them in plain language. Guardrails keep deterministic risk as the source of truth, including which factors are actually contributing to an unsafe or dangerous rating.

Does Storm Window change the weather numbers for my profile?

No. Personalization affects the hazard state, recommendation, and low-risk-window calculation. It does not change the underlying weather measurement shown in the app.

What are Plans?

Plans (Pro+) let you pin a future start time, end time, place, and activity — a race, tee time, swim meet, outdoor work shift, or other planned outdoor commitment — from the Plans tab. A Plan can be scheduled beyond the normal 72-hour home view; Storm Window fetches that place’s own forecast, independent of your saved locations, and monitors the Plan as forecast data becomes available. Choose Fixed for an exact start time, or Flexible to give Storm Window an earliest/latest range and let it recommend the best start inside it. Each Plan card shows a forecast-trend indicator (improving, worsening, stable, or just shifted in time since your last check), confidence, primary concern, and, for flexible Plans, an optional explanation of why that start was chosen; a fixed Plan whose window turns risky can also surface a better-rated nearby time as a suggestion. Use the card menu to edit, share, or remove a Plan. Turn on the Plan forecast changed alert in Settings to get notified if the worst risk anywhere in that window worsens as it approaches. See Plans in the User Guide.

Can I use Siri, Shortcuts, or Control Center with Storm Window?

Yes. Ask Siri or run a Shortcut for the current safety verdict, the next safe window, or the risk at a saved location and time — all free, and all read from the forecast already cached on your device. Pro adds a duration-aware “best time to go” Shortcut and Siri phrase; Pro+ adds a Plan-status Shortcut and Siri phrase. You can also add Control Center buttons (or Lock Screen/Action Button controls) for current risk, the next safe window, and starting or ending an outdoor session, from the same Home Screen widget gallery. See Siri and Shortcuts and Widgets and Controls in the User Guide.

What are Safety Alerts?

Safety Alerts are local notifications scheduled on your device from the latest cached forecast. Imminent hazard alerts are Free for the active location. Pro+ unlocks window-change, best-window-starting, next-window-changed, daily-briefing, and Plan forecast changed alerts. Backend delivery is used only where that specific alert path is enabled; otherwise these alerts are device-scheduled. See Alerts and Notifications in the User Guide.

What notifications can Storm Window send, and how do I control them?

Storm Window has two kinds of notifications. On-device alerts are scheduled locally from your cached forecast: the free imminent-hazard alert for your active location, plus Pro+ proactive Safety Alerts and Plan forecast changed alerts. Push notifications are delivered remotely and support Pro+ backend safety-alert paths when enabled, plus general Storm Window Updates (Tips & Safety Information, New Features & Announcements). Window-change Drivers choose which hazards can trigger backend Window-change alerts; they do not send separate heat, wind, air-quality, or severe-weather messages by themselves. You choose exactly which categories you want in Settings, and you can turn everything off in iOS Settings at any time. See Settings in the User Guide.

What is the other-locations ticker? (Pro)

When you have more than one saved location, Storm Window Pro can show a ticker of cached conditions for the places you are not currently viewing, with the most urgent shown first. Turn it on in Settings ▸ Display. It reads only forecasts already cached on your device — it never refreshes locations in the background or changes your notification settings — and tapping an item switches to that location.

How do I manage or restore Storm Window Pro?

Open Settings in Storm Window. If Pro is active, the Current plan row shows your active plan. Use Restore Purchases after reinstalling or moving to a new device, and use Manage Subscription to review, change, or cancel your App Store subscription. See Free, Pro, and Pro+ in the User Guide.

Does Storm Window sync across my devices?

Yes. Storm Window uses iCloud to automatically keep key settings in sync across your iPhone and iPad when both are signed into the same Apple ID. Changes propagate in the background; there is no manual sync button, and no Storm Window account is required.

What syncs (shared per person):

What stays per-device (not synced):

If you edit the same setting on two devices at nearly the same time, the most recently saved change wins and the other device catches up when it next connects. Each device always keeps its own active location, so switching locations on your iPhone does not affect the one your iPad is viewing. See iCloud Sync in the User Guide.

The app can’t find my location or shows the wrong place.

See Troubleshooting in the User Guide for the task-oriented checklist.

The forecast won’t load.

Storm Window needs an internet connection to fetch a fresh forecast. If a fetch fails, it shows the last cached forecast when possible. Check your connection and pull down to refresh. Coverage for extra U.S. thunderstorm probabilities and active NWS alerts is unavailable outside the United States, but the core forecast still works worldwide. NOAA map imagery and backend wind-flow grids can also fail independently of the forecast; when that happens, Storm Window keeps showing the location marker, available point forecast values, and safety verdict, with a map status message explaining what is unavailable. See Troubleshooting in the User Guide.

How do I add the widget or the Apple Watch app?

What can Apple Watch do with and without the iPhone?

With the iPhone nearby, Apple Watch receives the active location, saved locations, per-location forecast caches, activity profiles, and shared settings from the phone. The iPhone seeds the initial Watch location and activity, but after that the Watch app can keep its own wrist context. When you change location or activity on the Watch, the default Watch complication follows those Watch app choices. Touch and hold the Watch app’s chart to switch between Bars and Dots.

Storm Window Pro complications can also pin a saved location or activity. A pinned location stays pinned even if the Watch app changes location. If its activity is set to App Activity, it first uses the activity paired with that location on the iPhone, then falls back to the Watch app activity and finally the global activity. A pinned activity stays pinned until you edit the complication.

Apple Watch can also work on its own. It reads the last forecast and settings already stored on the watch, recomputes the low-risk-window headline locally as time passes, and can fetch a fresh forecast over its own network connection when the cache is stale or you pull to refresh. The watch app can set an independent location from the watch’s own GPS using a one-time, city-scale location fix.

Current limits: use the iPhone app to add, rename, delete, and organize saved locations. The watch also does not schedule the iPhone’s imminent-hazard local notifications. A watch-local current location is used for watch forecasts and complications only. See Apple Watch in the User Guide.

Is this a lightning detector or an emergency alert system?

No. Storm Window provides forecast guidance and weather-risk context only. It is not a certified lightning safety system, emergency alert system, medical app, or substitute for official watches, warnings, or your own judgment. Conditions can change quickly and no forecast is a guarantee. Do not wait for Storm Window: when thunder roars, go indoors.

Privacy

Storm Window needs no account. Saved profiles, personal profile settings, and most app data stay on your device. Pro+ Apple Intelligence guidance is generated on device when available; Storm Window does not send forecast prompts to a SiPhy AI service. App Store subscriptions are processed by Apple and RevenueCat so paid features can unlock and restore. If you opt in to Pro+ backend safety alerts or backend Live Activity updates, SiPhy’s backend stores limited registration data such as an anonymous device identifier, enabled alert categories, approximate forecast grid location, location display name, activity profile selection, and active Outdoor Session timing/metadata needed to update or end that Live Activity. Focused map context is requested from NOAA/NWS services for the map area, layer, and time; Pro Wind Flow requests use SiPhy’s backend to fetch NOAA HRRR wind vectors for the viewed map area. OneSignal delivers push notifications and Live Activity update payloads, but not your saved-location list, personal profile settings, route history, or precise GPS location. See our Privacy Policy for details.

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