How's The Weather - Check Your Text Message

More and more people are looking at their cell phones, rather than the television, to find out how to dress or whether or not to plan a day at the beach. That's because SMS, the technology that delivers a text message to your phone via the wireless SMS gateway, is being used for a lot more than sending "I love you" messages to your sweetheart.

Text Messages are finding a place in organizations that are responsible for forecasting and delivering weather reports to the public. And increasingly, these weather agencies are finding that SMS or text messages are better than e-mail for getting word out.

With more than 200 BILLION text messages being sent annually, SMS is becoming more popular than e-mail as an instant communication medium. That's why companies like SMS4pro.com are working hard to develop and deploy SMS-enabled software components, as well as complete SMS application suites, that make it possible for nearly any software program to be able to easily send and receive text messages.

Products like SMS4pro's SMS Service Manager, a plug-and-play SMS library that turns nearly any email-enabled application into an SMS-enabled application, are being used to deliver weather reports and weather-related emergency alert text messages to millions of subscribers who prefer receiving this type of information on their wireless communication device rather than their personal computer.

In South Africa, where lightning strikes kill an estimated 1.5 people per million inhabitants in urban areas, and as many as 8.8 per million inhabitants in rural areas, the ability to instantly warn residents of lightning storms is more than a mere convenience.

In order to protect their citizenry, the government established a lightning warning system that delivers lightning strike warnings using text messages sent to subscribers wireless communication devices.

The system is divided up into "buffer zones" that are established around cities, towns and villages, as well as around public facilities such as amusement parks, beaches and golf courses. Whenever lightning is detected within one of those zones, text messages containing the warning are immediately dispatched to subscribers in those affected areas.

In the United States, and in other tornado-prone areas where these wind storms strike with little or no notice and can injure or kill thousands in a matter of minutes, organizations like the U.S. NOAA Weather Service (NWS) have created SMS subscription services that use text messages to warn area residents the moment that a tornado is detected.