7 Excellent Ways That You Can Get Reliable Weather Safety Alerts

Email notifications, texting, app and voice alerts are all options for getting real-time severe weather and natural disaster warnings for exactly where you are. Some of them go beyond the weather and natural disasters, offering hyperlocal alerts on things power outages or allowing you the option to get alerts on recalls or health warnings. Most of these are either free or provide at least an entry-level service for free with the option of a paid upgrade if you want more.

Storm Shield

Named by Time.com's @Techland as one of the best weather apps, Storm Shield provides severe weather alerts for your exact location via voice and push notification. False alarms are reduced by the use of polygon alerts that are based on your exact location within a county. Anywhere you are in the world, storm-based alerts are available for tornado, hurricane, flood, thunderstorm, winter storms and other life-threatening weather. The app only uses the Significant-Change Location service, not GPS, so it should have a minimal effect on battery life depending on various factors specific to your device. If you prefer, you can turn off Background Tracking so that you only receive weather alerts for your saved locations. Choose from dozens of weather alert options and manage up to five locations. Available here for iOS and Android devices.

iAlert
Sign-up for real-time severe weather alerts from any of the listed 30,000+ USA cities and have them sent directly to you by text message or email. Signing up for your first location is FREE. You can select to receive any of over 100 "All-Hazards" alert types including: tornado alerts, severe thunderstorm alerts, flood alerts, winter storm warnings and more.

Get started with Personal Weather Alert Services from iAlert in 5 easy steps:

1. Go to http://ialert.com/individual.php
2. Fill out the form with your name, email, and password choice
3. Go to your email and validate your account
4. Login to iAlert.com
5. Configure your settings: a) select City/State, b) alert hazard category, and c) alerts by email and/or text

AccuWeather
AccuWeather.com offers FREE real-time weather apps for iOS, Android, and Windows smartphones, iOS, Android, Windows, and Kindle Fire tablets and Connected Television. Links to all apps are available here. For desktop computers AccuWeather.com offers a FREE five-day forecast and severe weather alerts service via email for any U.S. zip code.  Severe weather watches & warnings are sent to your email box as they are issued, so you can stay ahead of potentially dangerous conditions.

To get your email weather alerts started:

1. Go to https://alert.accuweather.com/accualert/index
2. Fill in your email address, zip code and preferences
3. Click the button at the bottom to submit your form

The Weather Channel
Never get caught in the rain again with reliable forecasts, interactive radar and real-time rain alerts, backed by the one of the most trusted names in weather -- The Weather Channel. Apps are available for iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV, and Windows phone and desktop. Links to all of these apps are available here.

weatherUSA
weatherUSA Alerts is a real-time weather alert service that sends out weather warnings, watches, tropical alerts, and other advisories as soon as they are issued by federal agencies including the National Weather Service. Alerts are sent to subscribers in the warned areas to a mobile device via text messages or by e-mail. Choose the alerts that you want to receive. Premium users can also receive alerts via phone call.

How to set up your email or text alerts:

1. Go to http://www.weatherusa.net/alerts/
2. Select either Basic or Premium service.
3. Fill in your information (name, email, chosen password, time zone, and mobile number and service provider for text messages)
4. Click on Create Account
5. Check your email and confirm your account
6. Login
7. Set location and alert preferences

ping4alerts!
Claiming to be the best all-in-one 311, 411, hyperlocal emergency alerts service app, ping4alerts offers real-time alerts for weather, traffic, school closures, Amber alerts, natural disasters, power outages and more. You choose the ones you want. Your privacy is 100% protected. Alerts are sent anonymously based on your location and the preferences you select. Because it checks in with location servers it requires constant battery support but uses a little less than 2% of battery power per hour. This hyperlocal mobile alerting platform is available for iOS and Android devices for FREE.

Emergency Email & Wireless Network Critical Alerts
Subscribers to The Emergency Email & Wireless Network include a "who's who" of business and federal and local government. Founded in 1999 by Skip Tamargo and joined shortly thereafter by former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, The Emergency Email & Wireless Network began sending out the first critical & emergency news to evacuees of hurricane Floyd. This is a 24 hour operation with bragging rights as the 3rd largest breaking news provider on the Internet. Their mission is to "Provide notification to citizens of local, regional, national and international critical news information utilizing the Internet, electronic mail (email) and wireless in a secure and expedient manner." This is a FREE service.  

Follow these steps to start receiving Emergency Email notification of natural disasters or other emergencies in your area:

1. Go to http://www.emergencyemail.org/
2. Click on your State from the list on the left side of the web page
3. Click on your Country from the list on the left
4. Fill out the form
5. Repeat for more than one area