You're the forecaster on shift tonight. No weather degree required — here's the whole job in four steps:
📞 A report comes in. Read it.
📡🛰️🖥️🗺️ Check the other screens for clues — you'll need to check a couple before "Make the Call" unlocks. Each screen has a plain-English summary and a "?" button if any word is unfamiliar.
⚠ Tap "Make the Call" and choose what to do about it.
📻 Hear how it played out, then move to the next report.
📡🛰️📞⚠️🖥️🗺️
Settings
Tune the shift to how you want to play. Saved automatically.
Difficulty
Display & Sound
Career
YOU'RE FIRED
Two rough shifts is two too many for the county's liking. The office has let you go — your career stats have been cleared.
📲 Add to Home Screen to Play
This shift only runs once it's on your Home Screen — takes about 10 seconds:
📤 ➡️ ➕ ➡️ 🏠
1Tap the Share button 📤 in Safari's toolbar (bottom or top of the screen).
2Scroll down the menu and tap "Add to Home Screen."
3Tap "Add" in the top-right corner.
4Close this tab, then open NWS: On Duty from the new icon on your Home Screen.
Once you launch it from the Home Screen icon, this screen won't show again — you'll go straight into the game.
❓ Quick Help
No jargon required. Here's what everything on screen means.
The Screens
📡 Radar — shows where rain, wind, and storms are, using radio waves bounced off precipitation.
🛰️ Satellite — a view of the clouds from space, good for seeing a storm's overall shape and strength.
📞 Reports — what people on the ground (callers, spotters, police) are telling you right now.
⚠️ Alerts — any warnings currently in effect, and a log of what you've issued this shift.
🖥️ Systems — whether your equipment (radar, sirens, radios) is actually working. Sometimes the "storm" is really just a broken machine.
🗺️ Map — which county is affected.
Common Terms
dBZ — how strong a storm's radar echo is. Higher usually means heavier rain or hail.
Couplet / rotation — a radar sign that part of a storm is spinning, a warning sign for tornadoes.
Hook echo — a hook-shaped radar pattern often linked to tornado-producing storms.
Supercell — a powerful, long-lasting rotating thunderstorm, the type most likely to spawn a tornado.
Dissemination — the systems that actually get your warning out to phones, radios, and TVs.
Prank / hoax call — a caller making something up or joking around. Nothing in the sky matches what they describe. Use Report as False/Hoax for these — not "No Action" and not "Report Technical Issue."
🔒 Locked call button — you need to check a couple of the other screens (radar, satellite, alerts, systems, or map) before you can report. No snap judgments from the phone call alone. Checking the Reports screen again doesn't count — it has to be somewhere new. Rookie mode requires fewer checks; Veteran mode requires more. If you're confident, "Make Call Anyway" lets you skip the checks — but you're flying blind.
Scoring
Public Trust — your score. Good calls raise it, false alarms and missed warnings lower it.
Strikes — two shifts ending with low trust and you're let go. Everything resets after that.