How can we help?

Yes. Forecasts, watches and warnings, storm surge, wind arrival times, NHC advisories, My place, tropical storm warning alerts and widgets are free, with no ads. HurriMap Pro is an optional subscription that adds watch alerts, models, Hurricane Hunter data, scenario editing, drawing on maps and the watch app.

No. There's no sign-up and no login. Pro is tied to your App Store or Google Play account.

• iPhone and iPad: iOS 15 or later (the home-screen widget needs iOS 17).
• Apple Watch: watchOS 10 or later.
• Android phones and tablets: Android 7.0 or later.
• Wear OS watches: Wear OS 3 or later.

Every ocean where storms threaten Americans. Hurricanes in the Atlantic (including the Gulf and Caribbean) and the eastern and central Pacific, including Hawaii, come from the National Hurricane Center. Typhoons in the western Pacific and cyclones in the South Pacific, including Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa, come from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. My place features such as watches and warnings, shelters and weather radio are for the United States and its territories.

Our servers check NHC and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center every 5 minutes, and the app refreshes every 5 minutes while open and whenever you return to it. NHC issues full advisories every 6 hours (5 and 11, AM and PM Eastern), with intermediate updates every 3 hours when watches or warnings are in effect. New National Weather Service watches are checked every minute.

There may be none right now. Overview still shows NHC's 7-day outlook areas, where storms could form. If you think a storm is missing, check your internet connection and reopen the app; it refreshes whenever you return to it.

HurriMap draws NHC's own forecast data, so the cone and track match NHC's. Times are shown in your phone's local time zone rather than the storm's, which can make labels differ by an hour or more. Some TV graphics also use their own models rather than NHC's forecast.

Typhoon forecasts come from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which draws a danger area: where tropical-storm-force winds could reach, allowing for forecast error. It isn't a cone of uncertainty, so HurriMap draws it differently. See Typhoons and the Pacific.

They're HurriMap's estimate. JTWC doesn't publish wind chances or arrival times, so HurriMap makes them the way the National Hurricane Center makes its own: 500 versions of JTWC's forecast, each shifted by JTWC's typical errors. The app labels them as an estimate wherever they appear.

JTWC also tracks hurricanes that NHC forecasts. HurriMap shows only the official forecast for each ocean, NHC's in the Atlantic and eastern and central Pacific, so you never see two versions of one storm.

The fast-updating GOES imagery covers roughly 11° to 50° north over most of the Atlantic and eastern Pacific. Outside that area, including near Guam and American Samoa, HurriMap fills in with an hourly global image, which is coarser. We're working on our own satellite feed to fix this.

They're part of HurriMap Pro. Recon also only appears when Hurricane Hunters have flown recently.

No. You can enter a ZIP code or press and hold on the map instead. If you tap Use my location, HurriMap reads it once to set your place. It never tracks you in the background.

A ZIP code sets your place at the ZIP code's center, which can be miles from your home. Open Menu → My place and press and hold your street on the map, or use your location, to set an exact spot.

It appears when the forecast shows tropical-storm-force winds could reach your place. It's built from NHC's arrival-time forecasts, which NHC issues for storms that could bring those winds to land, or for typhoons from HurriMap's estimate. If a storm isn't forecast to bring 39 mph winds to you, there's no deadline to show.

Yes. Tap Change the 12 hours on a My place card and set how long you need to finish preparing. The watch and widget use the same setting.

HurriMap can show zones and county orders only where the state publishes them in a form we can read. So far that's Florida. Elsewhere, check your county or parish emergency management website.

Not yet. My place, alerts, the watch and the widget all follow one place. You can press and hold anywhere on the map to see what a storm means there, then set your place back.

Check each of these:

1. My place is set, and Notify me for my place is on in Menu → My place. It should say On for your place, and including watches if you have Pro.
2. Watch alerts need HurriMap Pro. Tropical storm warning alerts are free.
3. Notifications for HurriMap are allowed in your phone's settings.
4. Focus or Do Not Disturb isn't silencing HurriMap.
5. On Android, battery saving isn't restricting HurriMap.
6. A watch or tropical storm warning actually includes your place. Open the app and look under Alerts for your place.

Tropical storm warnings for your place, free. With HurriMap Pro, also hurricane, tropical storm, storm surge and typhoon watches, about 48 hours before the winds. These are the alerts Wireless Emergency Alerts don't send. HurriMap never sends marketing notifications.

Your phone already gets them through Wireless Emergency Alerts, broadcast by the government to every phone in the warned area with no app or internet in between. Keep those on, and have a NOAA Weather Radio. HurriMap shows every active watch and warning for your place in the app, and sends the alerts WEA leaves out.

No, it's a heads-up. A watch means dangerous conditions are possible, usually within 48 hours: time to review your plan and get ready. A warning means they're expected, usually within 36 hours. A storm surge watch means life-threatening flooding is possible, so take it seriously. Follow your local officials, and if you're told to evacuate, go.

Yes. They're push notifications, so the app doesn't need to be open. If you uninstall the app, they stop.

HurriMap sends one notification per watch or warning, not one for every update of it. An upgrade from a watch to a warning is a new alert. Open the app to see the latest text under Alerts for your place.

Sign in with the same Apple ID or Google account you subscribed with, open Menu → Pro and tap Restore purchases.

• iPhone or iPad: Settings → your name → Subscriptions → HurriMap.
• Android: Google Play → your profile icon → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions → HurriMap.

Pro stays on until the end of the period you've paid for. Deleting the app doesn't cancel the subscription.

Apple and Google handle all payments, so refunds are requested from them: on Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com, or on Google Play through your order history. We can't see or issue refunds for store purchases.

Make sure you're online, then open Menu → Pro and tap Restore purchases. Check that you're signed in to the same store account you paid with. If it still doesn't unlock, contact us and say which store you used. Don't send payment details.

Set My place on your phone, then open HurriMap on the phone with the watch nearby so the settings sync. The watch downloads storm data itself, so it needs its own connection through the phone, Wi-Fi or cellular. The watch app needs Pro.

On iPhone or iPad, touch and hold your Home Screen, tap Edit, then Add Widget, and search for HurriMap. On Android, use Add widget to home screen in Menu → Options, or add it from your launcher's widget list.

Your phone decides how often widgets refresh to save battery, so updates can lag. Opening HurriMap refreshes it. On Android, check that battery saving isn't restricting the app.

Very little. There's no account, advertising or analytics. Alerts don't send your place to us: your phone follows its National Weather Service forecast zone through Apple's and Google's notification services. The details are in our privacy policy.