MyRadar from ACME AtronOmatic LLC is already one of the best free weather and environmental information app for iOS and Android. It provides information for many kinds of weather conditions, including the usual wind, clouds, lightning, forecast, air quality, earthquakes, rain and snow forecasts, and more in an animated map. It even provides information on satellites that will be visible!

MyRadar showing clouds over the Southwestern United States.

Its premium features include a hurricane tracker, an even more accurate radar and removal of ads for $9.99 per year.

MyRadar has recently added additional wildfire information, further expanding the usefulness of the app.

Wildfire information

This is a map showing the wildfire and smoke conditions for Los Angeles, CA and the area north of the city. As one goes north, the smoke conditions grow worse, shown by the increasingly dark zones.

For many of us, particularly on the West Coast, information on smoke, wildfires and air quality has unfortunately become more important than ever. The app has just added the ability to show hotspots detected by satellite as well as smoke analysis based on enhanced satellite imagery. The information is from the Hazard Mapping System’s Fire and Smoke products from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

I find that turning on the wind feature enhances the information by showing you which direction they are heading.

Activating the Air Quality toggle can show health conditions for a particular area.
This is the same map as above, but with the Air Quality layer on.

Photography

For me, discussing photography and wildfires in the same breath is fraught with conflict. There’s a voice in me that asks how I could possibly be concerned about whether the night skies are clear of smoke when I have friends affected by apocalyptic fires in Northern California. 

Wildfires on the West Coast and Canada have been horrible this year. These wildfires produced so much smoke that it blotted out the sky on the other side of the country. This often reduced the sun to a faint orange ball. 

Some of the many layers that you can activate. Clicking on those with an arrow can provide more insight or choices about what you wish to see. Some also provide opacity controls.

I believe a beautifully-designed app that provides information about smoke from fire and which way that smoke is heading is invaluable to just about everyone. And MyRadar provides this information for every country as well.

This map of North and South America shows some of the wildfires as well as the smoke generated by those fires. It’s safe to say that wildfires affect everyone, particularly now.

Intuitive

Perhaps my favorite aspect of MyRadar is its easy-to-use implementation. All the layers are clearly labeled and allow you to turn them on and off easily. Furthermore, the map is easy to read while still presenting the necessary information in an animated display.

As with any radar imaging, you’ll need to spend some time initially to interpret the various layers. However, I find the layers they show easier to interpret than many other radar apps I’ve used.