The morning the tornado hit, everyone was watching a radar built by a pre-college student: Brazil's RadarScope equivalent, 23k installs
What it is A Brazil-focused professional weather radar: shows storm structure, helps judge whether a tornado may form, and lets chasers share positions and report damage. Basic features are free; model panels are paid.
Why it took off In the second half of 2026, tornadoes and severe convection hit southern Brazil one wave after another. People wanted to see the storms clearly, mainstream weather apps don't offer raw radar products, and US pro radar apps have no Brazilian data. Brazil's TikTok storm-chaser circle turned "use Previsão Masters" into a catchphrase.
BHow you could follow it Don't try to compete with it in Brazil. Take the same playbook to another country with frequent severe storms and public radar data that is hard to use: start with a web version, keep radar free and charge for models, get local chasers and small weather accounts to credit your imagery, and use non-metered servers from day one.
- Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-08-19 · 11-07 installs 22,917
Android · Total installs worldwide Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.
Previsão Masters is a professional weather radar built by a storm chaser. It was listed on Google Play in Aug 19, and by Nov 5 it had 22.9k installs. It buys no ads; every install wave lines up with a tornado or severe storm in the south. Volume is modest, but it does something others don't: it takes Brazilian and Argentine radar raw data, which is public but hard to use, and turns it into the kind of pro product US chasers check every day. Below: how it got started, where the money comes from, where it struggles, and whether the playbook can travel to other countries.
Two videos on the morning of Nov 4
On the morning of Nov 4 2026, western Santa Catarina in southern Brazil had just come through a night of storms. A storm-chasing account, @brasilchasers, posted two TikToks in a row. The first: "Chapecó radar provided by Previsão Masters caught a confirmed tornado, heavy damage," 8,124 views. Half an hour later, the second: "Two more confirmed tornadoes. One in Itatiba do Sul, confirmed by radar, imagery provided by Previsão Masters; another between Xanxerê and Xaxim, it hit a federal highway police station."
That week, 134 cities in Rio Grande do Sul were hit, affecting 67k people. The tornadoes in Chapecó and Xanxerê were later confirmed (G1, Agência Brasil). The same week, Previsão Masters climbed the Brazil Google Play free Weather chart from #11-02 to #47 and then to #11-04, and #18 to #11-06 then #13. It charted only in Brazil.
What it is and who made it
In one line: Brazil's RadarScope. RadarScope is the pro radar app used by US storm chasers and weather enthusiasts. It doesn't just answer "will it rain"; it shows Doppler velocity, differential reflectivity (ZDR), correlation coefficient, and other signals that reveal storm structure and whether a tornado might form. It works well in the US but has no Brazilian radar data.
The Previsão Masters store page opens with: "For people who aren't satisfied with 'will it rain.'" It does the following:
- Takes raw volume-scan data from 40 weather radars in Brazil and Argentina and processes it itself: phase correction, attenuation correction, hail detection. You can replay storms one by one, with a color scheme in the RadarScope style.
- Runs its own 3 km resolution WRF weather model covering southern Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, outputting severe-convection indices such as CAPE, wind shear, helicity, and tornado parameters. Tap any point on the map to generate a sounding chart.
- Layers on GOES satellite and weather station data.
- Adds a layer built for chasers: a "live mode" that shares your location, photo-based damage reports, and a tornado path archive.
The maker is Lucas Moura. His X bio reads "storm chaser, weather enthusiast, incoming meteorology student at UFSM, photographer." He has chased for over 8 years, and his TikTok signature says "5 tornadoes recorded." His personal following is small: 4,470 YouTube subscribers, 3,536 TikTok followers (11-06). This product was not built on a big personal audience.
It didn't appear out of nowhere in August either. The web version came earlier. In May 2026, fans were already promoting it on TikTok with "please support this project" and a donation link. In Jun 19, Lucas posted that the "new generation" was live, saying it had a technical partnership with Defesa Civil SC (Santa Catarina's civil defense), which gave it the full product feed from 4 of the state's radars, and that it had connected all radars from Cemaden, the national disaster monitoring center. The app is the mobile version of that web platform. It is currently Android-only, with no App Store version.
Installs were pushed up by the weather
| Date | Play cumulative installs | Weather that week |
|---|---|---|
| 08-19 | Launched | |
| 09-05 | 1,611 | |
| 09-10 to 11 | 2,689 → 3,050 | Severe convection and tornado risk in Paraná, São Paulo, and Mato Grosso do Sul; F3+ tornado in Misiones, Argentina |
| 09-17 | 9,696 (about +5,700 per day) | Trigger not verified |
| 10-04 | 15,033(+2,342) | Southern "strong tornado risk" warning issued |
| 10-17 to 21 | 19,622, about 40 per day | During the shutdown and migration period |
| 11-05 | 22,917 | 11-04 to 06: tornado outbreaks in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina |
(Google Play install counts. Before 10-29 these were third-party estimates; new installs between two observations are spread evenly across the days.)
The curve's shape is clear: normally a hundred or two a day, jumping to hundreds or thousands on strong-weather days. Paid-acquisition curves look different: they rise when budget is on and drop when it's off, regardless of weather.
There's also a counter-signal: in the week of October when it shut down for migration, daily installs fell to about forty. If store search were the main source, installs shouldn't have dropped during the outage. New users probably came mainly from the web, communities, and other people's videos (inference).
Where users come from
Brazil's TikTok storm-chaser circle. Searching "previsão masters" on TikTok returns mostly videos made by enthusiasts: in Aug 4, @meteorologiarj_meteorj posted "Previsão Masters brings good vibes," 18.6k views, tagging the author; in Aug 6, a video that only said "\"Use previsão master\"" got 16.4k views; in Sep 27, "Use Previsão Masters right now!!"; plus many supercell and hail-live videos with "Radar: Previsão Master" in the corner. Single videos range from a few hundred to 10k+ views, all from small accounts. In this circle, "use Previsão Masters" has become a catchphrase, a badge of being someone who knows their stuff.
Sponsoring smaller weather accounts. Titles of YouTube livestreams during southern storms read "Sponsored by StarToGo, Previsão Masters"; a regional weather page on Instagram lists "Partner @previsao.masters"; some small weather station pages say "Supported by: Previsão Masters"; a few chasers list it as a sponsor in their acknowledgments. These are accounts with a few thousand to tens of thousands of followers, and sponsoring them doesn't cost much.
Giving its data to others. The two tornado videos at the start are examples: chaser accounts used its radar screenshots in confirmation posts and credited its name. With every severe storm, its imagery shows up across many videos.
Paid ads: none found. Meta and TikTok show no ads from it, and it's struggling with server bills, so it doesn't appear to have ad budget. No media coverage found either.
Where the money comes from, and where it struggles
Radar, satellite, and stations are all free; only the WRF model panel and on-demand soundings are member features. In-app purchases on Play range from $1.89 to $99.99, with no ads. There is also a donation page. No public revenue figures exist.
The only likely payers are a small group of hardcore users: storm chasers, meteorology students, amateur forecasters. An ordinary person who checks radar after a tornado won't pay for convection indices.
Its real problem is cost. On Oct 10, the official Instagram posted an "important notice" saying the platform gets over 5,000 visits a day, is hosted on Google Cloud, and Google Cloud charges by data transfer: "every time someone views radar, satellite, or station images, transfer fees are incurred." The result was "only 10 days of operation, a bill of about 19k reais" (about $3,500), so "platform operations are paused while we migrate to a new provider that doesn't charge by traffic." The Oct 16 version update said "radar, satellite, and stations are back."
Radar products are images that get reloaded frame by frame, and when storms hit everyone refreshes at once, so traffic peaks exactly when it's most expensive. The more users it gets, the more it loses. This is a structural problem for products like this.
Who it's competing with
| Product | Scale (Play installs, 11-06) | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| RadarScope | 289k | A pro radar benchmark, but without Brazilian raw radar data |
| RadarOmega | 129k | Another US pro radar, doesn't cover Brazil |
| Climatempo | 13.6M | Brazil's biggest mainstream weather brand. Gives forecast conclusions, not raw radar products |
| Meteored(Tempo.com) | 81.9M | Has a Brazilian rainfall radar mosaic, but no Doppler velocity, ZDR, or storm replay |
| Windy | 69.2M | Global model visualization; radar is just a precipitation map |
| MetSul | Websites and social media | The best-known weather media in the south. Publishes warnings and news, but doesn't open raw radar products |
| INMET, REDEMET, Cemaden | Government web maps | The data sources, but scattered and rough-looking, with no secondary processing |
Mainstream weather apps are hundreds of times larger, but they don't address this need. US pro radar apps serve this need, but they don't have Brazilian data. On the specific combination of Brazil-local raw radar, severe-weather products, and a chaser community, it has almost no direct competitors. We also found no copycats.
If it were you
Bottom line: This is a recipe you can copy, not a market you can grab. Lucas already holds Brazil: he has data partnerships, a community, and an identity there. The move is to take the same approach to another country with severe convection, public radar data, and no local professional radar tool yet.
Who it's for: developers who understand meteorology and can handle raw radar data (parsing volume scan formats, doing quality control, running WRF), ideally people already active in the storm chasing or weather enthusiast scene themselves.
Who it's not for: anyone who wants a mass-market product, plans to rely on paid acquisition, or expects revenue within a year. The user base is naturally small, paying users are fewer still, and growth falls to near zero in calm weather months.
How to do it:
- Pick the country first. The criteria: frequent severe convection, government radar data that is public but hard to use, and no local version of RadarScope yet. Mexico, India, the Philippines, Southeast Asian countries, and South Africa are each worth checking for whether their radar networks open raw data (inference, not verified one by one). Argentina is already partly covered by Previsão Masters.
- Start with a web version: radar and satellite free, models and soundings paid, then add an app.
- Proactively approach local civil defense and meteorological agencies about data partnerships. This is the part others find hardest to replicate.
- From day one, choose servers billed by bandwidth or flat rate, not per traffic (dedicated servers or a monthly bandwidth plan), and cache images on a CDN. Previsão Masters paid this tuition with a 10-day bill of $3,500.
How to get users: don't buy ads. Find local storm chasers, weather enthusiasts, and small weather accounts, give them the radar maps for free, and let them credit you on the images; sponsor a few severe weather livestreams; post your own storm replay videos on the day of each severe weather event. A tornado day is your launch day.
When to launch: go live before the next severe convection season in your target country. A few major events during the season are the entire growth window. Miss a season and you wait another year.
Signs you've misjudged it: skip the project if raw radar data can't be obtained in the target country, or if the country already has a government or major weather brand offering professional radar with Doppler velocity. If a major severe weather event passes after launch and installs still show no spike, the local enthusiast community is too small to sustain the product.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one RadarScope iOS 2011 Play 289k installs (googleplay library) A model professional radar app, but without Brazilian raw radar data. Previsão Masters even offers a RadarScope-style color scheme, building a Brazilian version RadarOmega Android 2018 Play 129k installs US professional radar, doesn't cover Brazil Climatempo Android 2011 Play 13.6M installs Brazil's mass-market weather brand; gives forecast conclusions, not raw radar products or convection indices MetSul Meteorologia Web Many years (unverified) The best-known weather media outlet in the south; its website has a paid subscription (scale unverified) Media type; publishes alerts and news, doesn't open raw volume scans or model panels Meteored / Tempo.com Android 2012 Play 81.9M installs Has a Brazilian precipitation radar mosaic, but no Doppler velocity, ZDR, storm replay, or storm chaser community Windy Android 2016 Play 69.2M installs Global model visualization; radar is just a precipitation map, with no local Brazilian 3km model or point soundings RainViewer / Zoom Earth Android 2016 / 2023 Play 3.75M / 8.63M installs Mass-market global precipitation radar INMET / REDEMET / Cemaden radar portals Web Long-term government operation Free and public The data source, but scattered, hard to use, and not processed further - Where users come from
- Verified severe weather events (platform events): 09-17 +5,695, 10-04 +2,342, 11-03~05 chart name 47→13 correspond to September PR/Argentina tornadoes, 10-03~04 tornado risk warnings, 11-04~06 RS/SC tornado outbreaks (googleplay library; G1, Agência Brasil, IG warning posts)
- Verified TikTok weather enthusiast word of mouth/memes: "Use previsão master" (08-616k views), "Use o (Previsão Masters) AGORA!!" (09-27), #previsaomasters supercell live footage, radar replays labeled "App: previsão masters" (TikHub 2026-11-06)
- Verified Sponsored weather livestreams and small weather accounts: YouTube livestreams of southern severe weather labeled as sponsored by StarToGo + Previsão Masters; an IG weather page lists "partner @previsao.masters"; the Tempo Iporã site has "Apoio: Previsão Masters"; storm chaser Gabriel Zaparolli thanked the sponsor
- Verified Migration of existing web users + founder's own channels: the web version 2026-06 has launched the "new generation" (X @lucaschaser), 10-10 officially reports daily visits of 5,000+; after the app launched, IG/FB/YouTube tutorials drove traffic; the founder has 4.47K YouTube and 3.5K TikTok followers
- Inferred Paid acquisition: no ad evidence found; the product is asking for donations and suspended service over a Google Cloud bill, which doesn't look like it has an ad budget
Previsão Masters (com.previsaomasters.app) research report
Research date 2026-11-06. Data sources: our googleplay library (app_profile / app_day_ext / chart_rank / app_snap, agent-im server), Jina web search and page reading, TikHub (TikTok), x-radar. The official site previsaomasters.com returned "Too many requests" during research, so its page content could not be read.
One line
A "Brazilian RadarScope" built by Brazilian storm chaser Lucas Moura: it started as a web platform (around 2025 years ago) and launched the "new generation" (2026-06), with the Android app only released 2026-08-19 later. It processes raw volume scans from 40 weather radars in Brazil and Argentina into professional products (reflectivity, Doppler velocity, ZDR, correlation coefficient, hail detection), plus a self-run WRF 3km model, GOES satellite, INMET/METAR stations, and chasers' real-time locations and damage reports. Its success comes from two things stacking: a string of tornadoes and severe convection events in southern Brazil in the second half of 2026 (each install spike lines up with a weather event), and a small circle of "weather enthusiasts / storm chasers" on Brazilian TikTok and Instagram that turned "use Previsão Masters" into a catchphrase. The scale is still small (22.9k installs worldwide), and it is not an ad-driven product.
1. Who they are
- Developer Play name LucasdeMouraMet, email [email protected], website previsaomasters.com [googleplay library app table].
- Founder Lucas Moura: on X @lucaschaser he describes himself as "Storm Chaser, weather enthusiast, incoming meteorology student at UFSM (Federal University of Santa Maria), photographer"; YouTube "Lucas Moura - Brazil Storm Chaser" has 4.47K subscribers and 44 videos, and he says he has chased storms for over 8 years; TikTok @lucas.moura.mt has 3,536 followers and 44k total likes, with the bio "logged 5 tornadoes" [x.com/lucaschaser; youtube.com/@Lucasmourachaser; TikHub 2026-11-06]. His personal following is very small, not a big account: the recall card's claim of a "well-known storm chaser with YouTube/IG/TikTok pushing it" overstates his personal influence.
- Timeline:
- 2026-05-22: On TikTok, enthusiasts are already urging people to "support the project" and linking the previsaomasters.com/apoie donation page [TikTok @cycloneattack2005br].
- 2026-06-19: Lucas posted on X that the "new generation" of Previsão Masters is live, adding a storm chasing livestream page at /ao-vivo-chasing. He said a technical partnership with Santa Catarina's Civil Defense (Defesa Civil SC) gives it full products from 4 of the state's radars, connects all Cemaden radars, and includes an "advanced mode" for operational forecasters [x.com/lucaschaser/status/2067790382130233444].
- 2026-08-19 launched on Play; 08-21 Instagram @previsao.masters announced the Android version [googleplay library; instagram.com/p/DcTeOtaDifv]. No iOS version (not found in the App Store).
- 2026-10-10: The official IG posted an "important notice": daily platform visits exceeded 5,000, it is hosted on Google Cloud which bills by traffic, "10 days' bill came to about R$19,000," so service was paused while migrating to a new provider that doesn't charge by traffic [instagram.com/p/DeVqEyPNLZA]. 10-16 version update notes: "radar, satellite, and stations are back" [googleplay library app.recent_changes].
- Product (Play Portuguese page): national radar mosaic with frame-by-frame animation; self-processing of raw volume scans from 40+ radar sites (phase correction, attenuation correction, hail detection), with storm replay, supporting RadarScope / MaxStorm / NWS color schemes; interactive WRF 3km panel (CAPE, wind shear, helicity, STP/SCP/EHI, simulated reflectivity, with Skew-T generated at any clicked location); dual-layer synced GOES satellite; INMET/METAR/REDEMET/Wundermap station data and history; city forecasts for Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay (WRF inside its domain, ECMWF IFS elsewhere); chasing "live mode" for sharing location, photo-based severe weather reports, and a tornado path archive [play.google.com detail page].
- Pricing: "Basic is free; the interactive WRF 3km panel and on-demand soundings are Premium"; Play in-app purchases $1.89–$99.99, ad-free [Play page; googleplay library app_snap]. There is also a donation page. No public revenue figures.
2. Growth data (googleplay library; estimated historical figures from AppstoreSpy before 10-29)
| Date | Total installs | New installs per day (averaged across observation intervals) | Corresponding events (web) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08-19 | Launched | – | 08-21 IG announcement |
| 09-05 | 1,611 | – | |
| 09-10~11 | 2,689→3,050 | 483 / 361 | 09-10~11 PR/SP/MS severe convection and tornado risk (G1, Climatempo); 09-11 Argentina Misiones F3+ tornado |
| 09-16→17 | 4,001→9,696 | 5,695 | 09-16 The official account thanked US weather blogger @NickKrasz_Wx for using this app in a post about radar maps of the Argentine tornado; the specific trigger is unverified |
| 10-04 | 15,033 | 2,342 | 10-03~04 Southern "strong tornado risk" warnings (IG, citing PREVOTS) |
| 10-07~08 | 17,103 | 1,174 / 819 | Another round of storms in the south (not verified day by day) |
| 10-17~21 | 19,622 | ~39/day | 10-10 announced the service suspension for migration; 10-16 restored |
| 10-22 | 20,457 | 812 | |
| 11-03~05 | 22,339→22,917 | 381 / 100 / 478 | 11-04~06 RS/SC tornado outbreak: 134 cities affected in RS, 67k people impacted, tornadoes confirmed in Chapecó and Xanxerê, SC (G1, Agência Brasil) |
- Brazil Weather free chart: 10-29 #38 → 11-02 #47 → 11-03 #32 → 11-04 #18 → 11-05 #15 → 11-06 #13; charted only in one Brazil store [googleplay library chart_rank].
- 7 days of new installs 1,522; Play page shows "10k+"; the store doesn't show the rating count (empty in the library), so there are no review samples.
- Assessment: the curve is event-driven, with about a hundred or two a day plus spikes on severe weather days, unlike the smooth pulses of paid acquisition; installs drop to near zero during the suspension, showing that new users come mainly from in-app and community referrals rather than organic store search.
3. Competitors
| Competitors | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RadarScope(DTN) | iOS/Android | 2011 | Play 289k installs [googleplay library] | It's a model, but it covers the US and others, not Brazil's raw radar data; Previsão Masters directly adopts its color style for a Brazilian version |
| RadarOmega | iOS/Android | 2018 | Play 129k [library] | Another US pro radar, doesn't cover Brazil |
| Climatempo | iOS/Android/web | 2011 | Play 13.6M [library] | Brazil's largest mass-market weather brand; gives conclusions and forecasts, not raw radar products or convection indices |
| MetSul Meteorologia | Web / social media | Years | The best-known weather media outlet in the south; its website has a paid subscription "Assine já" (scale unverified) | Media type; publishes alerts and news; doesn't open raw scans or model panels |
| Meteored / Tempo.com | iOS/Android/web | 2012 | Play 81.9M [library] | Has a Brazilian "rain radar" page aggregating IPMET/SIMEPAR/REDEMET, but it's only a precipitation map, with no Doppler velocity, ZDR, or storm replay |
| Windy | iOS/Android/web | 2016 | Play 69.2M [library] | Global model visualization; the radar is a precipitation mosaic, with no Brazil-specific local 3km model or Skew-T point soundings |
| RainViewer / Zoom Earth | iOS/Android/web | 2016 / 2023 | Play 3.75M / 8.63M [library] | Global precipitation radar, built for the public |
| Government portals INMET / REDEMET / Cemaden | Web | – | Free | The data sources, but scattered and rough-looking, with no secondary processing |
| Mass-producing "Clima & Radar"-style apps (e.g. Deep Orbit 2026-03 listed) | Android | 2025–26 | Play 2.92M and others [library] | Ad-driven generic weather shells that don't understand severe convection |
Verdict: there are almost no direct competitors on the point of "raw Brazilian local radar + severe-weather pro product + storm-chaser community". Mass weather apps are huge but don't touch this need, and US pro radar apps have no Brazilian data.
4. Growth tactics (evidence)
- Severe-weather driven (confirmed): every install spike overlaps with southern Brazil / Argentina tornadoes and severe-convection warning days; its rank on Brazil's weather chart jumped from #11-04 to #06 during the 47~13 RS/SC tornado outbreak.
- TikTok weather-enthusiast in-jokes and organic spread (confirmed): searching "previsão masters" surfaces enthusiast videos: ""Use previsão master"" (08-616k views), "Use o (Previsão Masters) AGORA!!" (09-27), supercell / hail live posts tagged #previsaomasters (11-01~04, @bryanlegal1), radar replays labeled "App: previsão masters", and even jokes asking the platform to charge for severe-weather reports (@vortice_meteorologia, 3,793 views). Individual videos get hundreds to tens of thousands of views: word of mouth within a small circle, not big-account promotion [TikHub 2026-11-06].
- Sponsoring weather livestreams and small weather accounts (confirmed): YouTube livestreams such as "tempo severo no rio grande do sul | acompanhamento ao vivo" are captioned "Sponsors: StarToGo, Previsão Masters"; an Instagram weather page "MS tem aviso de tempestade" lists "partner @previsao.masters"; storm chaser Gabriel Zaparolli's project credits include @previsao.masters as a sponsor; the Tempo Iporã station page says "Apoio: Previsão Masters"; and a channel announcement reads "Previsão Master becomes a new sponsor" [Jina search results].
- Owned channels (confirmed, but small): Lucas's YouTube tutorials ("how to use weather radar / satellite tools"), IG @previsao.masters, a Facebook page, and X; personal accounts with a few thousand followers.
- Web first, app for existing users (confirmed): the web platform 2026-06 already has "new generation" traffic and 5,000+ daily visits; the app is the mobile version of the same platform, with its first installs coming from web users migrating over.
- Paid acquisition: no evidence found (no Meta/TikTok ads turned up; product costs are tight and it is asking for donations, which doesn't suggest an ad budget).
- Media / big-account coverage: none found. The closest is a reply from the official account under a tornado post by US weather blogger @NickKrasz_Wx: "thanks for using our app".
5. Why it charted
- Timing: 2026 8–November, severe convection in southern Brazil was extremely active (hail attacks in August hit 173 cities, PR tornadoes in September, tornado risk in early October, early November RS/SC tornado outbreak), and both the public and enthusiasts were looking for radar that shows storm structure clearly.
- Exclusive data: it takes Brazilian and Argentine raw radar scans that are public but scattered and hard to use, processes them in-house into RadarScope-level products, and has secured a data partnership with Santa Catarina's civil defense. Mass weather apps won't do this, and US pro apps have no data to work with.
- Community identity: the founder is a real storm chaser, and the product includes "storm-chasing mode, real-time location sharing, severe-weather reporting, and a tornado archive". Among Brazil's TikTok "meteorologia / tornadotok" young enthusiast circles, it has become an identity marker ("using Previsão Masters" became a meme).
- Free enough: radar and satellite are fully free, so the barrier to spread is low. Only the WRF panel and sounding data are paid, and the paying audience is a small group of hardcore users.
6. Differentiation, and whether that's why it took off
The differentiation = "Brazil-local professional radar raw products (Doppler velocity, ZDR, hail detection, storm replays) + in-house WRF 3km convective indices + storm-chaser community features". In one line: "Brazil's RadarScope + Pivotal Weather + a storm-chaser community". This is why it took off: users weren't searching for "weather forecasts"; they were asking "will this cloud produce a tornado?". Until now, Brazilians had to piece this together from INMET/REDEMET web pages, MetSul posts and US tools. But the differentiation also brings weak points: high traffic costs (a 10-day R$19k GCP bill forced a service shutdown) and a naturally small audience (22.9k installs). Monetization relies on a few hardcore users and donations, and during calm weather periods growth falls to one or two hundred a day.
7. Visibility and copycats
- Revenue is not public; no media coverage; 0 mentions in the x-radar corpus; on TikTok only enthusiast alt accounts are spreading it. It counts as "talked about within a small circle".
- Copycats: none found.
8. Takeaways
- "Take publicly available but hard-to-use government data from a given country (radar, satellite, station data), process it further, and turn it into a local professional tool": this can be replicated in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Southeast Asia, India and more. The key is data-processing ability and local data partnerships (such as civil defense agencies).
- Web first, community first, then the app; trade sponsorships of small weather livestreams and weather accounts for exposure, at a cost far below paid acquisition.
- Growth is strongly tied to weather events: prepare bandwidth and servers ahead of the severe-convection season (it was caught out on usage-billed cloud hosting), and post radar replays on TikTok on event days.
- Release core observation data for free to drive spread, and charge only for hardcore features like models and soundings.
9. Uncertain
- The specific trigger for the 09-17 single-day +5,695 jump is unverified (possibly a viral video, a severe weather event, or a large-scale web referral push).
- Paid conversion, subscription price tiers and revenue are unknown; whether the IAP range $1.89–$99.99 includes donation-style tiers is also unknown.
- The web platform's real user count rests only on the official self-report "5,000+ daily visits" (10-10).
- The official site couldn't be read (rate-limited), so details in the recall card such as "80 radars processed 47", "SuperRes, 3D, VIL/MESH" could not be verified this time; the Play page says "40 multiple radar stations".