Severe WeatherGuardian version 5 is here!! Give it a try and keep the feedback coming!

Hello everyone!

It’s been quite a busy past three months working on the latest release of Severe WeatherGuardian, and it’s finally here!

Today I’m very excited to announce the release of Severe WeatherGuardian 5.0, one of the largest updates I’ve made to the app so far. Version 5.0 introduces WeatherGuardian AI, an entirely new voice-driven way to navigate the app and understand weather information, along with a new Wildfire Tracker for following reported wildfires and satellite-detected heat near locations you care about.

I’ve tried to approach AI a little differently here. Rather than adding a chatbot simply for the sake of having AI in the app, I wanted to build something that could provide a genuinely useful accessibility benefit.

WeatherGuardian AI has two modes: Basic AI — Voice Navigation, and Advanced AI — Conversation.

Basic AI is completely free. You can speak naturally to WeatherGuardian to navigate around the app and perform supported actions. For example, you can say things such as “open radar,” “set the location to Denver,” or ask about the flash-flood risk for today. You can change radar layers, move between areas of the app, select weather locations, check published weather risks, and even control supported Weather Radio playback without having to manually navigate through every control.

Basic voice navigation does not require a WeatherGuardian Plus subscription. Of course, if you ask it to open or control a feature that normally requires Plus, such as Live Radar, the existing Plus requirement for that feature still applies.

Then there is Advanced AI — Conversation.

This takes things considerably further.

You can ask WeatherGuardian questions about the weather, continue the conversation with follow-up questions, ask it to retrieve relevant weather information, and even ask questions about the weather information currently displayed on your screen.

For example, while looking at Live Radar you might ask, “What am I seeing on the radar?” You can then follow that with something like, “Are there any official warnings near that storm?” Instead of treating every request as an isolated command, Advanced AI can continue the conversation and help explain what you are looking at.

The screen-awareness component is particularly important from an accessibility standpoint. While the app is open, Advanced AI can use a current screenshot of the WeatherGuardian window along with relevant weather data to help explain maps, forecasts, storms, and selected hazards. Screenshots are only taken while the app is in the foreground for the request being handled; WeatherGuardian is not continuously watching the screen, and those screenshots are not saved.

Advanced AI uses Apple Private Cloud Compute. Microphone audio is transcribed on the device, and WeatherGuardian sends the resulting transcript, relevant weather information, and, when necessary, a screenshot of the WeatherGuardian window to Private Cloud Compute to answer the request. The app does not collect your conversations, and chats and screenshots are not stored by WeatherGuardian.

I’ve also put quite a bit of work into making the conversational experience practical with VoiceOver. The AI interface provides an accessible transcript and labeled Talk, Pause, and End controls. Spoken responses work with supported accessibility speech preferences, and haptic feedback lets you know when WeatherGuardian is listening or processing a request. In hands-free mode, listening pauses while your device is speaking and resumes afterward.

You can say “pause chat” when you need to temporarily stop listening without losing the conversation, or say “end chat,” “goodbye,” or “stop listening” to close the conversation. Once WeatherGuardian AI has been configured, you can also ask Siri to start a conversation with WeatherGuardian.

Advanced AI is part of WeatherGuardian Plus, but eligible App Store accounts receive five free Advanced AI replies so you can try the conversational experience first. Those five replies are separate from any App Store subscription trial and do not start a subscription. Normal voice-navigation commands remain free and do not consume one of those replies.

WeatherGuardian AI is completely optional. It requires iOS 27 or later, and Advanced AI additionally requires a compatible device with Apple Intelligence enabled, an internet connection, and availability of Apple Private Cloud Compute. The rest of Severe WeatherGuardian continues to support devices running iOS 17 or later.

The other major feature arriving in version 5.0 is Wildfire Tracker.

WeatherGuardian Plus users can now look up reported wildfires near a selected location and explore the information available for each incident. When provided by the reporting source, WeatherGuardian can show information such as the reported size of the fire, containment information, and mapped fire boundaries.

Wildfire Tracker also includes satellite heat observations. Satellites can identify areas of unusual heat that may be associated with wildfire activity, and WeatherGuardian presents those observations separately from confirmed wildfire reports.

That distinction is deliberate. A satellite heat detection by itself does not confirm that a wildfire exists, and a lack of reported fires or satellite observations does not mean an area is necessarily safe. Fire boundaries also represent areas that have been mapped; they should not be interpreted as a live representation of where a fire is currently spreading or as evacuation boundaries.

WeatherGuardian AI can also look up wildfire reports for you when you have access to Wildfire Tracker, meaning you can ask about reported fires near a location instead of having to manually search for them.

There are a number of smaller improvements throughout 5.0 as well. WeatherGuardian can better handle questions involving multiple weather risks, provide more detailed information about individual severe-weather threats, check whether a location is within an active Storm Prediction Center mesoscale discussion, and present outlook issue and expiration times more clearly.

Accessible weather information remains the central reason I’m building Severe WeatherGuardian. Live Radar made it possible to explore radar information with VoiceOver rather than treating the map as an inaccessible picture. With version 5.0, I wanted to extend that idea further by making it possible to simply ask the app what you need, navigate by voice, and have complex weather information explained conversationally.

As always, WeatherGuardian’s radar analysis, AI responses, wildfire information, and notifications are informational tools and can be delayed or incorrect. For immediate safety decisions, please continue to follow official National Weather Service warnings, NOAA Weather Radio, Wireless Emergency Alerts, evacuation orders, and instructions from local public-safety officials.

Severe WeatherGuardian 5.0 is available now on the App Store.

Thank you to everyone here on AppleVis who has downloaded the app, tested it, sent feedback, reported accessibility problems, and shared suggestions. A lot has changed in Severe WeatherGuardian over the past few months, and that feedback has played an important role in shaping what the app has become.

I hope you enjoy version 5.0, and I look forward to any feedback, suggestions, or bug reports you may have!