Storm Sensei is a weather-safety app for golfers (with more sports coming). It watches real-time weather data near your exact location and warns you when lightning, heavy rain, or other hazardous conditions are approaching — so you can make an informed decision about whether to keep playing or head in.
It's built specifically for people who are outdoors, exposed, and more focused on what they're doing than watching the sky. Storm Sensei watches it for you.
Storm Sensei continuously checks your location against live weather data — satellite lightning detection, radar, National Weather Service alerts, private weather data sources and (where available) on-site sensors. A dedicated safety system turns that raw data into a clear alert level, using hard rules like strike distance and storm speed — not guesswork.
On top of that, our AI reads the same data and explains what's happening in plain language, so you're not left staring at a radar map and a bunch of numbers trying to interpret it yourself. But the AI's job is explanation, not decision-making — the alert level itself is always set by the deterministic absolute safety rules underneath it, and the AI can only add urgency, never quietly reduce it.
We've independently tested how well this actually works against real historical storms — you can read the results on our Testing page.
No — and this is important. Storm Sensei is a decision-support tool, not a certified safety system. It's one input, not the only input.
Weather prediction is a genuinely imperfect science, even with good data and technology. No app — ours included — can promise it will catch every storm, every time, with perfect timing. If conditions look questionable — darkening clouds, distant thunder, a sudden wind shift — trust what you're seeing and hearing over what your phone says, and take shelter. Don't wait for an alert that hasn't come yet.
We publish real numbers, not just a claim. Our lightning detection engine was backtested against 295 verified historical storms and 759 certified quiet periods, going back to 2018. Our rain detection engine was backtested separately, against 178 real rain events and 519 confirmed dry periods. You can read the full breakdown, including where performance is strongest and where it's weaker, on our Testing page and in the two complete technical papers it links to.
Storm Sensei covers the continental United States (the lower 48 states and Washington, DC). Outside that area, the app shows 'Coverage unavailable' instead of conditions.
On iPhone, the App Store app can monitor and alert you in the background, even with the app closed, as long as you've granted it location and notification permissions.
On Android, Storm Sensei is available as a dedicated app on Google Play, and background alerts reach you with the app closed, based on the place you set in the app. If you already have Storm Sensei installed to your home screen from Chrome, that keeps working too — background push alerts already reach you either way.
On iPhone, DANGER and WARNING alerts arrive as Time Sensitive notifications. They come through any Focus that allows Time Sensitive notifications; a Do Not Disturb or Focus that blocks them will hold the alert. If you golf with a Focus on, go to Settings → Focus, choose that Focus, and turn on Time Sensitive Notifications.
On Android, to have Storm Sensei alerts come through Do Not Disturb, add Storm Sensei to the apps allowed in your Do Not Disturb settings (on Samsung: Settings → Notifications → Do not disturb → App notifications).
If you're using Storm Sensei through a browser rather than an installed app — on Android or iPhone — background alerting works differently: iOS in particular restricts background location for browser-based apps, so check the app between holes rather than relying on it to interrupt you unprompted.
On your screen, the map and conditions are for the place you set: the course you chose, or your position if you used Use Current Location. A course you chose stays fixed for your round; the app doesn't move it on its own. With the app closed, iPhone alerts are based on where your phone actually is, so if you chose a course you aren't at, your alerts still reflect your own position. On Android, alerts are based on the place you set in the app, and Android doesn't track your location in the background. To change the place, tap My Location or choose a different course.
Only during an active round. Alerts are tied to a session you start — press Start Monitoring, and the app watches conditions where you are until you end the round or the five hours run out. Outside of that, it isn't running, isn't watching, and won't send you anything.
"Works with the app closed" means you don't have to keep the app open on screen during your round. Put your phone in your pocket and alerts still reach you, even if another app is open on the screen. It doesn't mean the app is running in the background when you haven't started a round by pressing Start Monitoring.
Five hours from when you press Start Monitoring, or until you press the End button to end your round — whichever comes first. You'll get alerts for that whole window, including when your phone is in your pocket and the app isn't on screen (even if another app is on screen). After five hours, alerts stop automatically. If you're still on the course, just start a new session.
Only during a round. Location tracking starts when you press Start Monitoring and stops when you press the End button to end your round, or when your five-hour session expires — whichever comes first. Before you press Start Monitoring, the app isn't tracking anything.
One detail worth knowing: if your session expires while the app is in the background and your phone is completely still — sitting on a table, say — location access can stay active a little longer. It stops as soon as the phone moves at all, or the next time you open the app. In practice that means it ends when you pick up your phone or drive away.
Alerts stop at five hours regardless. That's enforced on our servers, not on your phone.
We collect only what's needed to send you alerts — your location (so we can check conditions near you) and basic technical identifiers the app needs to function. There is no account and we do not collect your email address. We don't sell your data, ever, to anyone. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.
Storm Sensei is deliberately conservative: on every alert, if there's ever a disagreement between the AI's read of the situation and the underlying deterministic safety rules, the higher, more cautious alert always wins. You may occasionally see an alert that feels more cautious than the sky looks — that's the system working as intended, not a bug.
Alerts need a working connection — cell or wifi. With no signal, no alerts can reach your phone, and the conditions shown in the app will stop updating.
The app tells you when this happens. The strike distance greys out, and after fifteen minutes it disappears entirely rather than showing you a number that's no longer current. Once you're back in range, it updates on its own.
Worth thinking about if you play somewhere with patchy coverage: Storm Sensei can't warn you about a storm if it can't reach you.
No. Alerts arrive whether that setting is on or off.
What matters is that you allow notifications and location access when the app asks for them. If you're not getting alerts, those two are the first things to check in your phone settings.
Tell us. Real-world feedback — especially about alert timing during an actual round — directly shapes what we prioritize next. You can reach us anytime through the Feedback link, or at support@stormsens.ai.
Storm Sensei is a decision-support tool. It does not replace your own judgment about weather conditions. When in doubt, take shelter— do not wait for an alert.
