Weather forecasts by satellite text
Text a weather question to 86-GETRELAY (+1 (864) 387-3529) from any satellite messenger and a live forecast comes back in one SMS — pulled from the same sources a meteorologist would check, compressed to 160 characters.
Land forecasts, anywhere
US locations get National Weather Service forecasts; everywhere else on earth falls back automatically to the Open-Meteo global model. Ask for tonight, a specific day, or the multi-day picture:
The reply always names its source — src: NWS or src: Open-Meteo — so you know exactly what you're trusting.
Marine: forecast AND ground truth
Two different questions deserve two different answers. The forecast comes from the global wave model; right now comes from a real NOAA buoy:
Tides come from the nearest NOAA station in station-local time, covering the next three days — so “tides tomorrow” just works.
Mountain-specific: snow, avalanche, smoke
Snow depth is measured — from the nearest SNOTEL stations, with distance and elevation considered. Avalanche danger comes from the official avalanche center for your exact zone, never from a web search.
Alerts and honest limits
Ask about warnings directly (“any alerts near me?”) and active red-flag, flood, storm, or winter warnings come back. And when a data source genuinely has nothing — tides at an inland lake, a buoy 300 miles from anywhere — Relay says so instead of guessing. A confident wrong answer in the backcountry is worse than no answer; the system is built to never send one.
Setup, once
- Create a free account at northstarrelay.com with the phone number your device texts from.
- Save +1 (864) 387-3529 in the device. That's it — no app, no plan tier.
- Location comes from your device GPS, a typed
@lat,lon, a place name, or a linked Garmin MapShare — whichever you have.