WRAL Relaunches Weather App with New Design, More Local Focus

WRAL has released a major update to its popular weather app, providing an all-new user experience, including easier access to popular features, customizable designs, animated graphics and voice alerts.

The all-new WRAL Weather app is a complete overhaul of the former app, and it delivers the most popular features right to the home screen — the interactive radar plus 7-day and hourly forecasts. Users can swipe right and left to see hourly weather trends, and tap the 7-day for detailed local forecast information from the WRAL Weather team. The latest observations and graphics can be found in the Weather Feed.

Push notifications voiced by WRAL Chief Meteorologist Greg Fishel are also integrated into the updated app. Fishel’s voice will alert app users when severe weather approaches their current or saved locations.

While many local TV stations rely on national app providers or white-labeled apps from outside vendors, WRAL has developed its own proprietary weather app in house, giving users an improved experience tracking local weather conditions and severe storms as they intensify. While many weather apps always look the same regardless of conditions, the updated WRAL Weather app provides breaking news and life-saving information at the top of the home screen, making it easier for users to know when threatening or unusual weather is on the way.

The advanced settings of the free app allow users to fully customize alerts by location and weather event type, and save a favorite school system to see school closings on the home screen. Weather geeks can enable scientific mode to see more location-based conditions on the home screen, including wind, dew point, humidity, visibility and barometric pressure. Users can also switch to dark mode to help reduce eye strain especially during night-time use.

“This new app delivers what area residents need most — locally prepared forecasts, customizable alerts to dangerous weather, quick access to the 7-day outlook and interactive radar, all from a trusted team of veteran meteorologists,” said CBC New Media General Manager John Conway, whose team designed and built the new app from scratch.

According to a survey done by FiveThirtyEight writers, nearly 20 percent of people get their weather information from a specific app other than what is already programmed on their phones, and another 20 percent get their weather forecasts from their local TV news station. The new WRAL Weather app aims to fill in the potential gaps in coverage between these mediums, and is designed to better serve its audience in the Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville DMA and beyond.

“The power in this app comes from how easy it is to customize,” said CBC New Media Digital Product Manager Jake Seaton. “Users can input exactly what information they’re interested in during setup, and from there, get tailored weather information and school closing updates as soon as they open the app. It takes WRAL’s fantastic weather coverage, and puts it right in users’ pockets.”

Anyone who currently has the WRAL Weather app simply has to update their app to gain access to all the newly-unveiled features. Users of the old WRAL Weather Alert app should delete that app and install the new WRAL Weather app from Apple, Google or Amazon app stores.

Thanks to NMG’s Laura Worthington for this capcom story & for these capcom graphics.