My Lightning Tracker & Alerts

Review by eFreeware

Thunderstorms rarely announce themselves politely. You hear a distant rumble, check a general weather app, and get a forecast for the next hour rather than a straight answer about what is happening right now. That gap between forecast and reality is where a dedicated strike tracker earns its keep.

My Lightning Tracker & Alerts comes from JRustonApps B.V., and it has been on Google Play since late 2016. It sits in the Weather category, has passed one million installs, and holds a 4.7 average across more than 53,000 ratings. The pitch is narrow on purpose: watch where lightning is striking around the world, and get told when it happens near you.

A narrow tool for people who watch the sky

This is not an all-purpose weather app, and I would not treat it as one. It does not set out to give you a seven-day outlook or a temperature graph. What it does is show lightning activity, which makes it useful to a specific set of people: someone with outdoor plans who wants to know whether a storm is closing in, a pilot or boater keeping an eye on developing cells, or simply a weather enthusiast who enjoys watching thunderstorms move across a map.

The alerting side is what gives the app its practical edge. If you live somewhere with frequent summer storms, or you are responsible for an event, a job site or a group of people outdoors, a notification that strikes have been detected in your area is more immediately useful than a percentage chance of rain. The developer describes the app as the most efficient way to keep up with lightning and thunderstorms, which is the kind of claim every weather app makes; what matters more is that the core idea is clear and specific.

It suits readers who want a focused instrument rather than a dashboard. If your interest in weather is broad, a general forecasting app will cover more ground. If your interest is thunderstorms in particular, the narrowness here is the point.

Watching strikes land in close to real time

The center of the app is a map of lightning strikes worldwide, updated close to real time. You can follow a thunderstorm as it develops rather than reading about it after the fact. For anyone who has ever refreshed a radar loop every few minutes during a storm, this is a more direct way to see the same event.

The map is also where the app gets more informative than a simple dot display. The developer points to Blitzortung and WeatherBug Spark as sources for more detailed information about where a thunderstorm is occurring, so you can dig into the location rather than just noting that something flashed somewhere. I would expect that extra context to matter most when a storm is near enough to affect your plans and you want to know which direction it is heading.

Sharing is built in as well. You can send an individual strike to a friend so they can see where the thunder and lightning is happening. It is a small feature, but a sensible one for anyone coordinating with family or colleagues who are scattered across a region.

Alerts, radar and a look back at where storms cluster

The lightning alarm is the feature that turns the app from something you check into something that checks for you. Alerts let you follow a storm in real time when one is close. That is the difference between remembering to open an app and being told that now is the moment to look.

Alongside the strike map, the app includes a weather radar view for tracking what could be coming your way. Radar is a familiar tool to anyone who follows storms, and having it in the same place as the strike data saves switching between apps when conditions are changing quickly.

A hotspot history shows the places strikes happen most. I like this as a browsing feature rather than a live one: it is the sort of thing you look at out of curiosity, or when planning travel to a region and wondering how storm-prone it is. It rounds out the app without pretending to be a climate research tool.

On the maintenance side, the developer's recent notes mention improved support for tablets and foldable phones, along with bug fixes and performance improvements. Current Android releases are supported.

What it costs, and where the ads fit

My Lightning Tracker is free to download, and the version on Google Play is ad-supported. Nothing is sold inside the app, so there is no premium tier to consider. The trade-off is straightforward, and it is the usual one for a free weather tool.

I would set expectations accordingly. A free app supported by advertising is not going to feel like a paid instrument, and the developer is upfront that this version carries ads. For a tool you might open during a storm and then close again, that seems a reasonable exchange, though anyone who dislikes advertising in weather apps will want to factor it in before installing.

There is no subscription to cancel and no purchase decision to make, which keeps the app simple. What you see on install is what you get.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is a general weather app. Those tend to bundle forecasts, hourly temperatures, wind, humidity and radar into one package, and many of them include some form of storm warning. If you want one app for everything, that is the more economical choice. My Lightning Tracker gives up that breadth in exchange for depth on a single phenomenon.

The other comparison is a dedicated radar or storm-tracking service, whether a national meteorological service's app or a specialist severe-weather tool. Those often carry official warnings and detailed forecasting discussion. This app is lighter than that: it shows where strikes are happening, alerts you when they are close, and lets you look at radar and historical hotspots. It is a companion to those services rather than a replacement for them.

For someone whose main question is simply "is there lightning near me right now, and where is it going", the focused approach here is easier to read at a glance than a full forecast screen. That is the case I would make for it over a general-purpose app.

A focused pick for storm watchers

My Lightning Tracker & Alerts does one job and does it without asking for money. It maps strikes worldwide in close to real time, alerts you when storms are detected nearby, offers radar and a history of hotspots, and lets you share individual strikes. It is free, ad-supported, and has no in-app purchases to navigate.

I would recommend it to people who care about thunderstorms specifically: outdoor workers, boaters and pilots, event organizers, and weather hobbyists who enjoy following a storm as it moves. It is also a sensible second app to keep alongside a general forecast tool, for the moments when a forecast percentage is not the answer you need.

If you want a single app that covers the whole weather picture, a general forecasting app will serve you better. If lightning is the thing you actually want to watch, this is a narrow, well-established tool with a strong rating behind it, and the price of admission is a few ads.

What's new in version 26.3.4

- Improved support for tablets and foldable phones. - Bug fixes and performance improvements.