Draw
Mark up the radar, and have it stay put
Fronts, outflow boundaries, rotation markers, hail cores, target boxes and plain freehand. Every mark belongs to the ground, so the circle you put around a hook echo is still around it two counties later.
A mark is a place, not a pixel
Most drawing tools paint on the glass. Move the map and the drawing stays where it was on your screen, which is worse than useless once the storm has moved out from under it.
Here every mark is stored as a position on the earth. Circle a couplet, pan two counties to check the inflow, zoom out to see the whole line, and your circle is exactly where you left it.
Getting started
Four steps
- 1
Open Draw on map
From the map menu. Two control rows appear at the bottom and the radar keeps running behind them.
- 2
Pick what you are drawing
The top row holds the tools and the weather presets. Swipe it sideways, or tap the three dots at its end to see every one with a line explaining what it does.
- 3
Draw it
One finger, or a left click and drag on Windows. A nearly straight stroke tidies itself into a line, and a closed round one into a neat circle.
- 4
Put the pen away
Tap the green tick. Your marks stay on the map with the tool closed, so you can carry on chasing and still see them.
One finger draws, two fingers move the map. There is no mode to switch. Pinch and pan with two fingers at any moment, including part way through a stroke. On Windows, hold the right mouse button and drag.
The tools
Seven basics
- Select
- Pick a mark to move it, restyle it or delete it.
- Draw
- Freehand. A nearly straight stroke tidies itself into a line, and a closed round one into a neat circle. Always one undo away if you meant the wobble.
- Line
- Straight line, reporting its length and bearing.
- Arrow
- A line with a head, for motion or direction.
- Box
- Rectangle, reporting its sides and area.
- Circle
- Ellipse, reporting its radius and area.
- Text
- Tap the map to drop a label.
Weather presets
Real symbols, one tap
Each preset sets the tool, the colour and the line style together, then draws the proper symbols along whatever you sketch. You are not drawing triangles by hand: you draw the boundary and it puts them on.
Boundaries
Cold front
Advancing cold air. Triangles point the way it is moving.
Warm front
Advancing warm air. Semicircles point the way it is moving.
Stationary
A boundary that has stalled, so its symbols face both ways on purpose.
Occluded
A cold front catching a warm one. Both symbols face the same way.
Outflow
Gust front off a storm's cold pool. Ticks face the way it runs.
Dryline
Moisture boundary. Scallops face the moist air it advances into.
Storm features
Rotation
Ring a couplet or mesocyclone. Carries a spin arrow.
Hail core
Dashed ring round a hail signature. Reports its radius.
Corridor
Damage or hail swath with a real ground width in miles, so it grows and shrinks with the map the way the ground does.
Chase planning
Target box
Where you plan to be. Filled so it reads as an area rather than an outline.
Escape route
Dashed arrow for the way out.
If the symbols face the wrong way. On a dead straight line there is nothing in the shape to say which way the boundary is moving. Pick the mark with Select, open the options and tap Flip pips.
Numbers
Every mark measures itself
There is no separate ruler to reach for. Whatever you draw already knows its own size, and you can pin that to the map.
- Line and arrow
- Length and bearing.
- Freehand
- The distance along the path you drew.
- Box
- Its sides, and its area.
- Circle
- Its radius, and its area.
- Corridor
- Length, bearing, and how wide the swath is.
Distances read in yards up to a thousand, then in miles.
Changing your mind
Nothing is stuck
Turn on Select and tap a mark. It lights up with dots on its corners. Drag the body to move the whole thing, or drag a dot to reshape it. With it picked you can also:
- Change its colour, width, line style or fill. The style row becomes that mark's own settings while it is picked.
- Duplicate it, push it in front of or behind other marks, or delete it.
- Flip which way a boundary's symbols face, for when a straight line gave the app nothing to go on.
- Edit the wording of a text label.
Undo and redo never scroll away. They sit on the bottom row at every screen size, alongside the green tick. Undo goes back fifty steps, and clearing everything is undoable too, so nothing in Draw asks you to confirm.
Working together
Turn a mark into a storm track
Draw is for what you mean. Storm Track does the arithmetic: swaths, the towns in the path and when it reaches them. They hand off to each other rather than duplicating each other.
Pick a line or an arrow with Select, then choose Make storm track. Each is read the way you drew it:
A line
Taken as the storm's leading edge. The radar is asked where it is going.
An arrow
Taken as the motion itself. Its tail is where the storm is, and its shaft is the direction and how far ahead to look.
Your marks stay on the map through the switch. Only the pen is put away.
Keeping it
Saving and sharing
Saves itself
The map you are marking up is written to your device as you work and comes back when you next open the app. You do not have to do anything.
Named sketches
Give one a name to keep it and open it again later. Useful for a setup you built the night before.
Share an image
Sends a picture of the map with your marks on it, ready for a group chat or a report.
Export the shapes
Sends the raw geometry, for anyone who wants to open it in mapping software.
All four live under the three dots on the bottom row, in Saved sketches.
In the field
Things worth knowing
Your marks stay readable over radar
Every stroke carries a thin contrasting outline, so a line crossing a red core does not disappear into it. That is why white and black are both usable here, and why the eight quick colours avoid the greens, yellows and reds the radar itself is made of. The full colour picker is still there if you want it.
You never have to put the pen down to look around
Two fingers move the map at any moment, including halfway through a stroke. The stroke is abandoned, the map moves, and you carry on.
Move the controls if they are in your way
If you are drawing near the bottom of the screen, the options include a switch to send both control rows to the top edge instead.
If your palm keeps touching
Turn on Map locked from the options. The map then holds completely still and stray contacts are ignored, at the cost of having to unlock it to pan. It is off by default because two-finger panning already keeps drawing and moving apart.