Built around OSHA & NOAA 30-minute lightning guidance

Most lightning alerts tell you it's here.
Ours tell you it's coming.

A text when lightning is detected within 20 miles of your site, another at 15, and the stop-work call at 10 — each with the distance and direction of the closest strike, plus any National Weather Service thunderstorm forecast or watch in effect for that address. When a cell is heading your way, the crew winds down on your schedule instead of scrambling on the storm's.

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Plans from $29/month per company · Set up in under 2 minutes · Cancel anytime

Lightning Ward · 2:06 PM

⚡ LIGHTNING ADVISORY — 20 MILES — Lightning detected 19 mi SW of 4800 Fairmont Pkwy. No action required at this distance. National Weather Service hourly forecast shows thunderstorms from 1 PM to 4 PM. Severe Thunderstorm Watch in effect until 5 PM.

Lightning Ward · 2:24 PM

⚡ LIGHTNING WATCH — 15 MILES — Closest strike 13 mi SW. Consider preparing to shut down now. National Weather Service hourly forecast shows thunderstorms from 1 PM to 4 PM. Severe Thunderstorm Watch in effect until 5 PM.

Lightning Ward · 2:41 PM

⚡ LIGHTNING ALERT — Strike detected 6.2 mi away. Stop outdoor & crane operations. National Weather Service hourly forecast shows thunderstorms from 1 PM to 4 PM. Severe Thunderstorm Watch in effect until 5 PM.

Lightning Ward · 3:19 PM

✅ ALL CLEAR — No lightning within 10 mi for 30 minutes. Operations may resume per OSHA/NOAA guidance.

The ladder

Four messages, in the order a storm arrives

Each stage sends once per storm. No repeats, no chatter — every text you get means something changed. The three warning texts also carry the National Weather Service forecast for your address, looked up fresh each time, so any one of them stands on its own.

20 mi

Advisory

Lightning detected in the area, with distance and direction. No action required yet.

15 mi

Watch

It's closing. Start winding down cranes, work at height, and anything slow to make safe.

10 mi

Stop work

All outdoor and crane operations stop — the distance in OSHA/NOAA guidance.

30 min

All clear

Thirty strike-free minutes inside the radius, then work resumes. Every new strike restarts the clock.

Not every storm announces itself. A cell that forms directly overhead can put lightning inside 10 miles with nothing detected further out — those sites get the stop-work alert first and nothing before it. The early stages are what we can see coming.

How it works

From address to active monitoring in two minutes

No weather stations to mount, no apps for the crew to download. If your foreman can receive a text, you're covered.

Register your site address

Enter the job site address and the phone numbers that should get alerts. We geocode the site and watch the airspace around it around the clock — out to 20 miles, not just the 10-mile stop-work line.

Get warned before it's on top of you

Lightning inside 20 miles sends an advisory; inside 15, a watch. Each names the distance and direction of the closest strike, alongside what the National Weather Service has published for your address — the hours thunderstorms are forecast, any watch or warning in effect, and your site's closing time if you've set operating hours. One text per stage, per storm — no spam.

Stop work at 10, all-clear at 30

A strike inside 10 miles is the stop-work call. Then, after 30 consecutive strike-free minutes — the OSHA/NOAA-recommended wait — every contact gets the all-clear, so work resumes without guesswork.

What you get

Everything a safety plan needs, nothing it doesn't

Purpose-built for superintendents and safety managers who need a defensible lightning procedure — not another dashboard to babysit.

📡

Staged 20 / 15 / 10-mile alerts

Three tiers instead of one, around your exact site coordinates — not a county-wide weather alert. The early tiers are the part a person standing on site can't do for themselves.

🌧️

The forecast in the same text

Each warning carries what the National Weather Service has published for that exact address — the hours thunderstorms are forecast, any watch or warning in effect, and when your site is due to close. The near view and the longer one in a single message, so nobody opens a weather app to decide whether to pull the crew. We relay the Weather Service; we don't forecast anything ourselves.

⏱️

30-minute all-clear timer

Every new strike resets the clock. The all-clear only goes out after a full 30 strike-free minutes, matching OSHA 3863 and NOAA guidance.

🗺️

Live status page per site

Each site gets a shareable status page with a live strike map, radar overlay, countdown, and the next twelve hours from the National Weather Service. Pin it in the crew group chat — no login needed.

👷

Alert the whole crew

Add multiple phone numbers per site — foreman, superintendent, safety manager. Every contact gets every stage at the same time, so nobody is waiting to be told.

📱

Works on any phone

Plain SMS. No app to install, no accounts for field crews, nothing to keep updated. It works on a flip phone in a dead zone of app-store coverage.

📄

Compliance report export

Every strike, alert, and all-clear is logged with a timestamp. Export a clean PDF report for any date range — ready for OSHA inspectors, insurers, or project owners. Still need the written procedure itself? Start from our free jobsite lightning safety plan template.

Pricing

Simple per-company pricing

Every plan includes full monitoring, staged SMS alerts with the National Weather Service forecast, all-clear timers, and live status pages. No contracts, no sales calls — cancel anytime.

Starter

One active job site, up to three alert contacts.

$29

per month

1 monitored site
3 alert contacts
Staged 20/15/10-mile alerts & 30-min all-clear
National Weather Service forecast in every warning
Live status page with strike map

Choose Starter

Common questions

Something else on your mind? Email us — a real person answers.

How quickly do alerts arrive after a strike?

We poll Xweather's professional lightning detection network continuously and text as soon as a strike is confirmed inside one of your rings — typically within a few minutes of the strike itself. Most storms cross the 20- and 15-mile rings before reaching 10, so the advisory and watch usually arrive ahead of the stop-work call.

Why 10 miles and 30 minutes?

Those are the thresholds recommended in OSHA/NOAA lightning safety guidance for outdoor workers (OSHA publication 3863): suspend work when lightning is within 10 miles, and wait 30 minutes after the last strike before resuming. Lightning Ward automates exactly that procedure — including resetting the 30-minute clock every time a new strike is detected. We start texting at 20 miles because by the time lightning is at 10, that guidance says work should already have stopped — not be starting to.

Does every storm give advance warning?

No, and we won't pretend otherwise. Storms that move in from a distance cross the 20- and 15-mile rings first, so you get the advisory and the watch before the stop-work call. But a cell that builds directly over a site can put lightning inside 10 miles with nothing detected further out — in that case the stop-work alert is the first message you receive. Detection also reaches about 25 miles out, so a fast-moving storm may first appear already inside the 20-mile ring. We report what's detected, and we relay what the National Weather Service has published for your address — we don't make forecasts of our own.

Will you tell me how long until the storm reaches my site?

No. Storms change speed and direction, and one that stalls or grows in place can look like it's closing fast when it isn't. A wrong countdown is worse than none — a crew that's told "twenty minutes" and gets eight stops trusting the tool. So we stick to what can actually be observed and reported: how far away the closest strike is and which direction it came from, and, for the longer view, the National Weather Service forecast for your address — the hours thunderstorms are expected and any watch in effect. The near picture and the long one, from the people whose job each of those is. Your judgment and the radar do the rest.

Where does the forecast in the text come from?

The National Weather Service, for the coordinates of your site — not a county-wide product. We read their hourly forecast and any active watch or warning and restate it in the message without changing it or adding to it. It's looked up fresh for each text, so the advisory you get at 2 PM and the stop-work alert at 4 PM can carry different information, and each one stands on its own. If the Weather Service has nothing thunderstorm-related for the hours ahead, that sentence is simply absent — we don't pad it. And if their systems are slow or down, the warning still goes out on time without it: a safety message is never held up for a forecast.

Does my crew need to install anything?

No. Alerts are plain text messages, and the live status page is a normal web link that opens in any browser. Only the account owner ever signs in — field crews just receive texts.

What happens if a storm is already overhead when I sign up?

The moment your site activates, we check the last hour of strike history around it. If lightning has already been detected inside your radius, we immediately put the site in alert status and start the 30-minute countdown — you're never starting blind.

Can I change sites as jobs finish and new ones start?

Yes. Sites aren't locked in — from your dashboard you can remove a finished job site and add the next one anytime, within your plan's site count.

Can I document our lightning procedure for OSHA or insurers?

Yes. Every detected strike, alert, and all-clear is logged with a timestamp. From your dashboard you can export a compliance report for any date range — it shows when alerts went out, how many contacts were notified, and when operations were cleared to resume, along with the detection methodology. Print it or save it as a PDF. The report documents what happened; if you also need the written procedure it enforces, our free jobsite lightning safety plan template is fill-in-the-blank and needs no account.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There are no contracts or cancellation fees. Manage or cancel your subscription anytime from the billing portal in your dashboard, and monitoring runs through the end of your paid period.

Most lightning alerts tell you it's here.Ours tell you it's coming.