The Chrome extension Rain Alarm provides users with up to date precipitation warnings. The extension adds an icon to Chrome’s address bar upon installation that acts as a warning indicator, as it changes if it needs to inform the user about local weather warnings. The icon itself is rather small and definitely not the best notification option. Better than that icon is the built-in notifier that displays a small notification message in the operating system whenever the user needs to be notified.
The notification displays information about the precipitation, e.g. snow fall or rain, as well as its reach and strength.
A click opens the rain alarm website with a Google Maps view of the selected location. Here you find precipitation data over time, a local weather map so to speak. You can zoom in and out of the map which seems to be completely independent of the browser extension. Users who just want to use rain alarm this way can open the website to do just that.
The website offers precipitation data of the last two hours. You can go back or forward in time to see the intensity at a specific period in time.
The Rain Alarm options can be used to change the location for the weather forecasts and warnings automatically or manually. There is unfortunately no option to use multiple profiles for different locations in the world. Only one location can be active at a time.
Text notifications can be turned off, and sound notifications turned on here as well. Other options include changing the search radius and interval, the sensitivity which defines when alarms get triggered automatically, the time format and units of measurement.
Rain Alarm can be a handy extension for Chrome users who need to be in the known all the time. It is not a full blown weather extension though, but if precipitation is what you want, then this is what you get.
Are you using weather services or weather extensions? Let me know in the comments.
© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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