New devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Motorola Xoom and the Galaxy Note come equipped with sensors that can measure atmospheric pressure.
A Canadian software company, Cumulonimbus, worked with atmospheric scientists to build an app called PressureNet2 that takes advantage of these functions to make short-term weather forecasts more accurate. The sensors were originally installed as a method to more accurately track a user's location, by using pressure to estimate elevation. The application is on version 3.0, with new data visualization and live updates, sharing and privacy options, smaller icons, auto-submit options and bug fixes.
When atmospheric pressure drops, it's often the sign of an incoming storm, while rising pressure signifies fair weather. This function would help in areas where storms strike quickly and without much warning, such as the Midwestern United States, but Cliff Mass, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington told NBC that precise weather forecasting would benefit most areas in some way or another.
The app became available just before Hurricane Sandy thrashed the East coast in October, and scientists were able to track its progress as the storm traveled inland. Despite some benefits in local weather prediction, in the case of Sandy and, more recently, Nemo, the app was not as useful to forecasters because those storms come from over the ocean, where few people use smartphones (and even fewer have a signal).
Mass said that he currently gets about 4,000 readings an hour, most of them clustered in the Northeast, suggesting at least that many people with the app. In the Google Play store, most reviewers were eager to see what meteorologists can do with the information gleaned from PressureNet. While some have said that the app is lightweight — meaning it doesn't drain much battery and won't take much processing power to keep running in the background — others claim it drains the battery and crashes their smartphones and tablets. It may depend on the device and other background applications.
One Google user uses the app to predict their migraines, as some people are sensitive to atmospheric pressure changes.
The team behind PressureNet is working on a system to chart both pressure and pressure change into high-quality forecast models, Mass wrote in a recent blog post. A student, Luke Madaus and a professor, Greg Hakim, will try to determine whether a phone is stationary or mobile based on GPS data, which will hopefully allow them to test the models on thunderstorms in the Midwest and the convergence zone in the Pacific Northwest.
