3 min read

Using the Weather Map

The weather map shows live conditions across all the weather stations around you, and lets you overlay rain radar and real-time lightning so you can watch weather as it moves. This article explains how to choose what the map displays and how to read it.

Opening the Map

Open the weather map from the app's main navigation (the map icon). The map is available on both the mobile app and the web app.

Choosing What to Display

The map can show several layers at once. Open the layer control to turn each one on or off:

On the web app, click Map layers (the stacked-layers icon) to open the layer panel.
On the mobile app, tap the layers button to open the layer options.

You can toggle any combination of the following:

Weather observations

Shows current readings from nearby weather stations as colored markers on the map. Tap or click a marker to open that station. When this layer is on, you can also choose which metric the markers display (for example temperature or wind).

Rain radar

Overlays an animated precipitation radar so you can watch rain, hail and snow move across the map. Radar data comes from national radar networks (NOAA, EUMETNET OPERA and others), served by SmartMixin's own radar service.

Lightning strikes

Plots recent lightning strikes in real time. Lightning data is provided by Blitzortung.org.

Reading the Legend

Open Map legend to see what the colors mean. The legend adapts to the layers you have enabled.

Rain, hail and snow

When the rain radar is on, the legend shows three separate color ramps:

Rain — light to heavy rainfall intensity
Hail — the most intense returns, where hail is likely
Snow — light to heavy snowfall

Intensities are shown in your preferred unit (for example mm/h or in/h). See Setting Your Unit Preferences to change your units.

Lightning age

Each lightning strike is drawn as a lightning-bolt symbol centered on where it struck. The color shows how recent the strike is over the last 20 minutes: the newest strikes are white and fade through to dark red for the oldest. Strikes also shrink as they age, then disappear at the end of that window.

Note: The lightning layer on the map shows regional strikes from a lightning-detection network. This is different from your own station's Lightning sensor section, which counts strikes detected by your station's hardware. See Customizing Your Dashboard and Managing Your Sensors for station sensor sections.

Was this article helpful?

On this page