RadarPlus Guides Wife Home, Kid at Pool

I was trying last week to think of a recent situation where the street-level ability in AccuWeather.com RadarPlus allowed me to help forecast for my family. Today was such a day. Mid-afternoon, the kids were called out of the local pool, where my daughter is spending most of her summer) due to thunder. My phone rang and she asked how long the storm would last and if she should go home.

Although RadarPlus didn't indicate any cloud-to-ground lightning yet (the thunder must have been cloud-to-cloud, which is a precursor), there was clearly a storm just to the east of the pool (you're looking at the city streets of State College, here). However, it was small, and I could tell it was slowly drifting to the East, so I told her they would be back in the pool soon, but she shouldn't try to walk home yet.

Then my wife (who has a convertible Jeep-type vehicle) called from her job downtownat 4:30 to ask whether or not she should drive home sans roof. According to RadarPlus, that was a bad idea. I told her to hang tight until I saw the rain clear her location, and she came home without incident.