The myBeachCast mobile application provides real-time information on beach advisories and closures, weather, and water conditions for states around the Great Lakes. The app allows users to discover local beaches based on location, save favorite beaches, and view corresponding weather conditions and five-day weather forecasts. The app is initially being designed for the Android platform but a mobile-friendly enhanced website (http://beachcast.glin.net) will offer complementary information for other mobile platforms (coming in 2012).
The Android application was developed with funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. LimnoTech (www.limno.com) developed the application in collaboration with the Great Lakes Commission (www.glc.org) and the Great Lakes states.
The beta version of the application, released in August 2011, retrieves beach advisory data from the states of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, all of which use the common BeachGuard database system to report beach advisories and closures from local health departments. BeachGuard is the central portal for local health departments to report results of routine monitoring at local beaches and to post advisories in the event of unsafe bacteria levels. For more information on monitoring programs and monitoring frequency you can click on the “external link” option on the beach details page in the application.
*Please visit http://beachcast.glin.net to join our beta testing group**
***IF you get a 'Force Close' error PLEASE REPORT the error so that we can pinpoint the problem***
Known Issues
- The application icons may not display well in landscape view.
- Search may not complete if user has a poor data connection. Try repeating the search or use Wifi.
- **FIXED 8/24/11** Force close when using the back button when navigating back to myBeachCast from an external application (e.g. web browser or map)
- Five-day weather forecast loads slowly. This is caused by the icons being loaded every time.
- **FIXED 8/16/11** External links for Michigan beaches do not work.
Currently Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio are “live” in the application. Illinois will be live in early 2012. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New York are expected by mid 2012.
