The Weather Channel
A great starter source is The Weather Channel. If you're new to meteorology, or just want the facts, you should probably start here.
Pros:
- Make learning Meteorology and knowing what's happening easily.
- Long time professionals.
- Local weather every 10 minutes on TV.
Cons:
- Doesn't always cover severe weather. Don't count on them.
- Constantly has "cliff-hanging" and fear-mongering titles and pointless spam articles on their website. Not the most interesting.
weather.com
The National Weather Service (NWS)
The most reliable of them all. A government ran service dedicated to weather. These are the guys who send out those irritating messages to your phone or sound those really loud sirens.
Pros:
- Government ran.
- Extremely reliable.
- Raw doppler radar data.
Cons:
- Not for beginners.
- Can be confusing if you don't know meteorology well.
This part is also pretty inaccurate. I'm going to pick this apart just to clarify right and wrong, (not to be a richard, just to give my opinion again.) First, the Pros for TWC shouldn't be "Long time professionals". I won't rely on any weather source unless the meteorologists are professionals, especially if it's like life-threatening weather. Also, the local weather is every 8 minutes, hence the name, "Local on the 8's". I don't really know what you mean by "Doesn't always cover severe weather." 99% of the time, The Weather Channel will have a ticker running across the bottom of the screen, informing of severe weather in the area. Even if it doesn't, there is still the Local on the 8's, which will show the local radar and any severe weather if any. There is no reason to not count on them unless Intellistar forgets up and doesn't display proper information/radars.
For the National Weather Service section, I would have to say that those "irritating" messages aren't that irritating if they're going to save your life. I almost never get weather notifications on my phone, but if I did, I would have to say I would be worried on how severe it is, considering that the only other State-wide alerts I receive on mobile are Amber alerts. While I do agree with you on the Pros of the NWS, I don't really see how it could be too confusing, even for people that know nothing about meteorology.
The national radar given has a clearly labeled color-coded legend showing current weather warnings/watches for every county of every state in the United States. It really isn't too hard to figure out.
